Marin residents jockey to beat holiday shipping deadline
Marin residents flooded post offices this week, aiming to beat Saturday’s U.S. Postal Service deadline to get holiday gifts under trees by Christmas Day.
Some last-minute shippers said they had hurried their packaging efforts to ensure their parcels made the cutoff.
“A Christmas gift a day after isn’t really much fun,” said Lynne Pentis of San Rafael.
On Friday morning, Pentis had toys, pajamas and computer games packed in a few neatly taped parcels ready to go at the post office on Bellam Boulevard in San Rafael. The packages were bound for Southern California and Scotland for her nieces and nephews.
Pentis said she strived to send them by Friday in order to avoid paying extra for expedited shipping.
“I generally end up spending a little more,” she said. “That’s why this year I wanted to make it on time.”
Justin Hastings, a Postal Service spokesperson, said Saturday is also the last day to make sure that first-class letters arrive at their intended destinations before Christmas.
Items sent by more expensive means, such as priority mail, can still make it if they go out by Monday or priority mail express if they are sent by Thursday .
This week is considered the busiest of the holiday season. Traffic at post offices nationwide have stepped up since Dec. 5.
William Hario, postmaster for the county’s central area that includes San Rafael and Kentfield, said the Bellam Boulevard site is considered the nucleus of the postal operation and is the largest center between San Francisco and Santa Rosa.
“We are the hub for Marin County,” Hario said.
Typically, the office gets about 5,000 to 6,000 packages a day. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the daily volume increases to between 9,000 and 14,000.
“We’re just inundated,” he said. “But we still make every effort we can to get those packages out. We’re going to do everything we can.”
At the front desks on Friday, customers lined up with parcels in their hands and under their arms. Some, like Nancy Noland of San Rafael, packaged her items inside the post office. Inside a cardboard box, she placed rain boots for her niece in Cobb, a small town in Lake County. She was gratified to learn that her package would make it in time for Christmas.
“I don’t think much about packages, I think about Christmas and spending time with the ones you love,” she said. “And if you can’t be with them, send them something special.”
A.J. Kallet of Mill Valley said his father, a veteran, had a collection of more than 5,000 stamps from the 1920s and 1930s. The stamps, contained in one small parcel, were headed for a Virginia service organization called Stamps for the Wounded, which provides stamps to comfort and engage veterans.
It was a coincidence that he was sending them near the Christmas deadline, he said.
“I was looking to get these albums some place,” he said. “Today was the day.”
The bulk of the postal operation was behind the desks. On the loading floor, orange hampers filled with mountainous stacks of packages rolled on the concrete floors. Hurried but pleasant voices meshed with clapping cardboard and shuffling feet.
At the back dock, postal trucks shuttled into the loading bays and back out to the street. The busiest times are during the morning rush between 5 and 6 a.m., and the last truck will leave the facility at 8:10 p.m.
Hario said there are about 130 employees at five stations in his area, including 105 at the Bellam Boulevard location. Some of the workers are pulling 12- to 14-hour shifts.
Patti McKay of San Rafael was dressed in festive Christmas attire when she brought a package to the Bellam Boulevard post office on Friday morning. She said it was the second package to go to the same address.
“I’m done mailing,” she said.