Christmas keeping postal workers busy

Tanya Morgan thought there might be a long line at the Bonners Ferry post office on Monday, which was the U.S. Postal Service busiest day of the year due to the Christmas holiday.

Morgan was pleasantly surprised to see only a few people in line. She was even happier to find something to pack the dill bread, cookies and Chex mix she was sending to her brother in Black Mountain, N.C.

While an estimated 830 million pieces of mail were expected to mailed Monday, it was busy at the local post office, said postmaster John Hite.

“We had both windows open,” Hite said.

The most people in saw in line at one time was 15. Most were holding packages.

“Sometimes the line got short and sometimes longer,” he said. “But it never went away. We had two windows all day long.”

Katherine Hooper of Bonners Ferry didn’t have a real long wait to mail a box of candy to her daughter and grandchildren in Nevada City, Calif., and a son in Roseburg, Ore. Carman Jones of Bonners Ferry made the candy that Hooper sent to her family.

“I expected a bigger line,” she said. “It will be good to get this done.  I procrastinate. Now all I have to get done is my Christmas cards.”

That’s what Jerry and Shirley Weber were mailing on Monday. The Bonners Ferry couple carried a box of 50 cards into the post office for mailing to friends and family throughout the nation.

They didn’t have to worry about waiting in line. They simply slid the stamped cards through the mail slot inside the post office.

“It’s a really nice feeling,” Shirley Weber said about getting the cards in the mail.