The increasing pace of mailing season’s greetings or Christmas gifts in Durango appeared to be moving smoothly Tuesday, at least for the most part.
But those hoping to get cards and parcels to their destinations by Dec. 25 need to move fairly quickly. Missives and packages must be in the mail by Friday to arrive before Christmas, a U.S. Postal Service spokesman said Tuesday.
After that, it’s still possible to get letters or packages delivered by Christmas by using priority mail or priority express mail, spokesman David Rupert said by telephone from Denver. The deadline for the former is Saturday, for the latter, Monday.
“The mail will arrive by Christmas,” Rupert said. “But it will cost you.”
If mailers don’t want to make a trek to the Durango Post Office, postage is as close as their computer, Rupert said. At www.usps.com, the sender enters the address and weight of what is to be sent, prints out the stamp and affixes it to the letter or package.
“You have to know the weight or find out what it is,” Rupert said.
The online self-service has been available for a couple of years, Rupert said.
The processing of Durango mail in Albuquerque, which began Sept. 28, hasn’t affected Durango-to-Durango delivery, Rupert said.
“We clear all mail every day,” Rupert said. “All mail received in Albuquerque during the day is processed every night and goes out the next morning. It just needs to be deposited in time.”
Those trekking to the downtown Durango Post Office might want to prepar for a line. On Tuesday, the 29 parking slots at the post office on west Eighth Street emptied, only to immediately fill. But at 11:30 a.m. and in the early afternoon, the four customer windows seemed to be handling the crowd expeditiously.
“I was in line only 15 minutes, a lot better than I expected,” said Lois Surmi. “There were 16 people ahead of me.”
But one early visitor reported spending 55 minutes – from 8:20 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. – in line. He spent 10 minutes wrapping and 45 minutes standing in line.
Patrons were in and out in minutes, as well, at the Mail Room and Copy Center in Town Plaza.
“We try to make it easy for the customer,” said Debbie Van Winkle, who with husband, Lee, also have stores in Cortez and Farmington. “We hire extra help well before Christmas to cut the lines.”
The shop handled 341 customers Monday, the busiest it’s been all year, Van Winkle said. The Mail Room always has three windows open, she said.
The U.S. Postal Service stopped processing mail in Durango as a money-saving move. The consolidation was part of a national effort to reduce costs by $20 billion by 2017.
The Durango Post Office remains open for retail operations and as a transportation hub. Officials said no postal jobs were lost.
daler@durangoherald.com
