Canada Post expecting record year for Christmas parcels

Mild temperatures may not put you in the Christmas spirit, but they will help get your parcels under the tree.

"We've had extremely good weather," said Canada Post spokesperson John Caines.

There have been no significant delays of any length of time, he said.

"The only two areas I'm aware of so far that we had any delivery problems for any length of time at all, was one day in St. John's Newfoundland and maybe half a day in Winnipeg, but other than that it's been great."

Canada Post is expecting to have a record year for the number of parcels it ships this Christmas season.

It delivered 36 million parcels in November and December 2014, but that number should be up 20 per cent this year, said Caines. This would work out to about 43 million parcels.

"Online shopping is really taking off in Canada. It started to a couple of years ago, but our holiday season starts with cyber weekend, basically Black Friday and Cyber Monday," Caines said. 

"We've been delivering about a million packages every day since then, so that combined with the good weather for transportation services, it has been an incredible time for us right now."

It's no longer possible to send parcels by regular mail, but you still have a shot at getting your gifts to their rightful owners.

The last day to send Christmas cards locally is Dec. 21. The cutoff for sending Xpresspost parcels is Dec. 22. The deadline for priority parcels is Dec. 23.

Canada Post is delivering on the weekends and up until about 9 p.m. on the weekdays to keep volumes down.

"Our target is to have a clean floor come Dec. 24," Caines said.