Last modified: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 10:50 AM PST Jennifer Colton | Argus Observer Payette Post Office employee Kevin Davis, New Plymouth, weighs holiday packages for Brenda Jewkes, Payette, Tuesday. This week is the busiest time of the year for post offices across the county as customers send out last minute gifts and packages for the holidays. Mail crunch hits Jennifer Colton | Argus Observer Payette Typically, the busiest day of the year for a post office is the Monday before Christmas. This year, at least locally, that trend is holding steady as U.S. Postal Service employees reported higher than usual revenues and a surge in customers at both the Payette and Ontario offices. “Yesterday (Monday) was one of the busiest days I've seen,” Payette Postmaster Jim Bailey said Tuesday. “I think it was more than last year.” While percentages have not been calculated, the office has extra trucks taking packages out and staff is pushing for customers to ship priority mail, Bailey said. “Yesterday our office here sent six or seven times the normal amount (of packages),” Bailey said. “Normally we send around four pieces of equipment out of here, and yesterday we sent probably 20 or 21. It was a huge difference.” Business was constant Monday, with two window clerks and a line of customers out the door. “Typically that's the big day, the one or two Mondays before,” Bailey said. “For some reason, people do their shopping on the weekend and mail the packages on Monday. Ideally, people should have had their packages shipped weeks ago, but I haven't finished my shopping yet either.” While traffic at the Post Office was heavy, the pace of delivering has remained steady. “The carriers so far, the last couple weeks have been busier, but not huge,” Bailey said. “I'm expecting here in the next couple of days for that to pick up too. Our biggest delivery day will probably be Thursday or Friday. People ship things Monday or Tuesday and they're going to start arriving Thursday or Friday.” This week, the Payette Post Office will also start a redelivery, delivering “anything that looks like a Christmas present” twice a day, trying to get all presents out before the end of the week. “The last thing you want is a lot of Christmas presents sitting in here on Monday,” Bailey said. “We'll try to be ready for anything this week. If you're shipping in the Northwest, you can probably ship (today), but if you're going back east, you're probably too late.” In Ontario, post office traffic Monday was even heavier than expected, Ontario Postmaster Alan Schuster said. “Yesterday was our busiest day of the year,” Schuster said Tuesday. “It was nationwide, and it was here in Ontario. Yesterday we did three times the amount of a normal weekday.” The Ontario Post Office usually runs two windows, but Monday kept four open all day. So far this holiday season, revenues at the Ontario office are up 15 percent. “Yesterday (Monday) was 19 percent, that's a big increase,” Schuster said. “We were hoping to stay the same as last year, we had no idea it would be that big. We had employees here at 5 o'clock in the morning, and we had employees here at 5 o'clock last night.” Schuster said he expected the office to remain busy through Tuesday and then to drop off. “If they haven't mailed by now, it's getting down to the crunch. About the only way they're going to get it there now is express mail or priority mail. But every package will be delivered. Carriers do not go home without delivering all their packages.”