'Twas The Week AFTER Christmas And The Post Office Was Empty

It's amazing how busy this place can be for a couple of weeks before Christmas. North Miami has a sizeable population of immigrants. We have people from Jamaica, Haiti and other Carribean islands, Central and South America, Russia and various West European countries, as well as India, Japan, China, etc., all of which have various religious holiday traditions and dates of celebration around the winter solstice, together with different requirements of just when you positively have to get your gifts in the mail to assure they arrive on time.

On the one hand it spreads out the crush of people coming here to mail their gifts. On the other hand it means that for perhaps two weeks, maybe more, this place is crowded, clerks manning all the stations, and the line snaking out the door. Then one glorious day it's over with. Everything has been mailed and for the most part all the incoming seasonal mail has arrived and been picked up. This was one of those days. I had a 6x8 inch manilla envelope (on the counter next to my hand) to get weighed and mailed, and I was in and out of there in maybe five minutes. Fantastic!