Santa Claus may have a little more competition this year, as the United States Postal Service has projected a significant surge in the number of packages delivered this Christmas and holiday season.

According to Karen Mazurkiewicz, Western New York spokeswoman for USPS, the Buffalo region, which includes the Dunkirk area, should see roughly 2.5 million parcel deliveries between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The Postal Service has estimated that number nationally as being around 450 to 470 million packages, about a 12 percent increase in volume over last year’s holiday season.

“Double-digit increases in package business tells us America has placed their trust in us to get their packages delivered in time for holidays – and we’re committed to do just that,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe stated in a news release. “The Postal Service will be out making deliveries every single day during the holiday season, including Christmas Day.”

Fredonia Postmaster Tim Sullivan said he has seen firsthand the large increase in the amount of delivered packages for Christmas this year. He added about 500 packages are being delivered daily in the Fredonia zip code.

He also explained why he believes the amount of holiday package transactions is on the rise.

“(It’s mainly) between more people buying on the Internet and just some of our partner contracts with other companies, like Amazon.com is moving a lot of their shipping to us,” Sullivan said. “They drop mail off and we do what we call the last mile, instead of the other companies going door-to-door like we do every day. They give some of the packages to us to do the door-to-door for them.”

Dunkirk Postmaster Jami Sorrento noted business has stayed fairly busy this holiday season. She said a large number of people are using the Priority Mail flat rate boxes.

“That seems to be a hot item,” she noted. “People seem to like them; they can put whatever they want inside them. It doesn’t matter how heavy it is – it’s one flat rate.”

Sorrento said official amounts for package transactions this Christmas will be available around January.

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