LA GRANDE — Call it a yuletide tradition: Grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends, and other categories of people with distant loved ones shuffle up to counters all over the country, plunk their packages down, and say, “How much to ship this?”

Together they make up what people in the shipping and handling business call the Christmas rush. It’s a demanding time, a time when everybody’s got to bring their “A” game to work each day.

“We are in the peak season, Thanksgiving to New Year’s. This is our Super Bowl, but we’re in a good place to handle the volume,” said Kim Frum, a Seattle-based communications specialist for the United States Post Office.

Preparation, Frum said, is a key to success.

“The postal service begins prepping for next year’s holiday season as soon as the current year wraps up, so work began on the 2023 holidays in January,” she said.

Frum handles USPS public relations in a territory covering Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. Frum said she didn’t have specific details about La Grande and Union County, but she said USPS handled 12 billion pieces of mail and packages nationwide during 2022’s peak season, and is on pace to handle a similar number this year.

As of 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 21, the service had accepted 10.4 billion pieces of mail and packages for the holiday season.

Frum said the post office hired 10,000 seasonal workers this year, less than the usual number because 150,000 postal workers have been converted to career positions in the last three years. She said it’s good to have so many helpers.

“It’s all hands on deck through the weekend,” she said.

Frum said there will be Sunday delivery in many locations around the country to ensure holiday packages arrive on time. She added that on Christmas Day, in select locations, there will be delivery of Priority Mail Express packages.

Post office locations, however, are closed both days.

At a couple of local shipping and handling businesses, the holiday rush was its usual fearsome self this year, but slowed down as this weekend approached. FedEx and UPS holiday shipping deadlines are past. Neither handler will be delivering on Sunday, Christmas Eve, or Monday, Christmas Day.

The Copy Club, 1701 Adams Ave., La Grande, is a shipping point for FedEx, UPS and the U.S. Post Office. Manager Myshaela Rector said local customers appeared to be take care of their holiday shipping needs in a timely manner this year. As of Dec. 21, there’s been no last minute crunch.

“We’re not as busy as we were at the beginning of the week, though we’ve got a few stragglers,” she said.

Copy Club staff did work hard for their wages this holiday season, though.

“It was pretty heavy. We do a lot more shipments this time of year,” Rector said. “We only have two tills, so we’ve got to be quick.”

Mercedes Brink is a shipping specialist at Copies Plus, 1904 Adams Ave., La Grande, a pickup point for FedEx, UPS and USPS. She said the Christmas rush started right on time and kept the staff hopping all through December.

“Thanksgiving was heavy and then it picked up from there. We had packages up to the wall,” she said. She said the rush slowed toward the end of this week.

Brink said two employees work the morning shift, then two others come on in the afternoon and work until closing. There have been days this season when workers didn’t get home on time.

“Sometimes we get those last minute customers coming in and we end up staying later,” she said.

Brink hired on in September, so this was her first experience with a Copies Plus Christmas rush. She said she was up to the task.

“I’m pretty much used to being busy during the holidays, so I was prepared,” she said.

On its website, UPS said it will deliver 30 million packages a day worldwide during the peak season.