News Photo by Julie Riddle Mail carrier Matt Prince, near the end of his daily 10-mile walk to deliver mail to Alpena residents, tucks letters into a mailbox on Sable Street on Friday.

ALPENA — “We’re almost there — I can taste it,” said postmaster Sharon Wirgau on Friday as her post office in Ossineke entered the homestretch of a post office’s busiest time of year.

Christmas cards and carefully boxed gifts have been flowing fast and furious through local post offices’ doors for the past week. Though the rush is almost over, Wirgau expects Monday to be another busy day for her and her staff.

In Alpena, postal carriers have put in a lot of overtime this week, making deliveries until well after dark, said Postmaster Rob Gross.

While parcel delivery has increased in the area in recent years, Gross said, use of first-class mail has dropped nationwide. He attributes the decline to the change in the way people communicate in our social media-driven society.

“You go on your Facebook, and, it’s your birthday, you get 10,000 ‘Happy birthdays,’ and how many cards do you get in your mailbox?” Gross said. “I get, like, two.”

Catalogs used to contribute to a holiday’s bulky mailbag, Gross said, with Victoria’s Secret at one time their number-one shipping catalog. Major retailers have all switched from catalogs to online sales, though, he said.

On the decline nationally, parcel delivery actually increased in 2018 locally, Gross said, a statistic he attributes to the “A-number-one” customer service available in the area.

In addition to packages sent through the U.S. Postal Service, the Alpena post office finishes deliveries for major courier services, including on Sundays.

In rural or outlying areas of Northeast Michigan, cards and packages find their way to the many small-town post offices in the region. From there, they board a truck bound for Gaylord, then trundle their way to Traverse City, where they are shuffled, sorted, and sent on their way toward their final destination.

Even a card mailed to a next-door neighbor makes the trek to Traverse City, Wirgau explained.

While the there-and-back-again journey may seem counterintuitive, it actually speeds up the delivery process, Wirgau said. Machines in Traverse City speedily sort the first-class mail by address — a job that would have to be done by hand at local post offices — preparing it to be efficiently delivered by a mail carrier hoofing it down a local sidewalk.

Customers are often surprised that mail from Ossineke to Alpena is routed through Traverse City. Logistically, though, it does make sense, the postmaster said.

“How’s it going to get there otherwise?” Wirgau said good-naturedly. “I do live in Alpena. I could deliver it on my way home, I guess, but I don’t think that’s what you’re looking for.”

For the most part, the workers in her small post office are in a good mood during the holiday rush, Wirgau said. When she was a carrier, herself, she enjoyed the hustle of the season.

“It’s the one time of year I know I’m bringing what people want,” Wirgau said.

Customers coming in to drop off packages are usually in good spirits, as well. A small-town post office is often less crowded than in a larger city, and she knows some customers drive to Ossineke from Alpena to drop off their mail, even if it means a half-hour drive out of their way.

“They enjoy that drive time instead of standing-in-line time,” she said.

Wirgau welcomes the extra customers the holiday season brings. Money spent locally on postage helps keep the lights on and the carriers employed, the postmaster said.

“Nobody wants to lose a small-town post office,” Wirgau said, reminiscing about Metz, Bolton, and other communities that once had a post office but now are struggling. “Once they lose their post office, a town loses a lot of its identity.”

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.