Holiday Mailing Made Easy

While finding great gifts for your family and friends can be fun, trying to get them into little brown boxes and standing in long lines at the Post Office is not. That's why I ship all of my holiday packages from the comfort of home.

Don't like long holiday lines? The US Postal Service Web site allows you to use a credit card to pay postage and print shipping labels. Once your packages are ready to go, you can even use their pickup service to schedule your mail carrier to pick up your holiday packages from your home - free of charge! To make sure your packages get their on time, be sure to ship Parcel Post by Dec. 15, First Class Mail by Dec. 20 and Priority Mail by Dec 22.

UPS also offers an option for shipping holiday packages from the comfort of home, through their Internet shipping option at UPS.com. As with the USPS, you can select the service you want, pay by credit card and then print a shipping label. Once your package is ready, you can hand it to a UPS driver, schedule a pickup, or take it to any of UPS’s 70,000 shipping locations. To ensure Christmas delivery, ship UPS Ground packages by Dec. 15 (though most make it in 2-4 days).

Don't like to deal with boxing up your Christmas gifts? Federal Express offers a new Pack and Ship option at FedEx Kinko's locations. Just bring in your gifts, and they'll take it from there.