The Butler Post Office typically sees 35,000 to 40,000 letters on the average work day, but that number increases around the holiday season, and the office recently processed more than 60,000.

We don’t often think about the process that needs to happen for our mail to get from our homes to an address anywhere else in the country or world, but the holiday season is a good time to think of the people who make this transition possible. There are several U.S. Post Offices in Butler County, and all of them are likely feeling the strain of holiday traffic this December.

Victoria Bowser, postmaster at the Butler post office, recently updated people on what to do and expect with Christmas just a few days away, and also gave some advice on how to make the jobs of postal workers a little easier in this time. Some of her advice included clearing your walkways of snow and ice and being wary of mail trucks on their delivery routes while sharing the road.

These are good tips for any time of year, because as Bowser explained, the Post Office has come to process more packages than letters in recent years, making the job of its workers “more physical” than ever before.

In total, the U.S. Postal Service is projected deliver 11.5 billion packages, so many of its workers are facing a more physical workload.

With all this in mind, we should be patient with the Postal Service and the workers who make it run, because there is only so much they can do to make sure mail arrives on time, especially when sent in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Try to make their holiday special by helping them out on their routes this season.

— ET