NELVIN CEPEDA / Union-Tribune
Edwin Cruz talked on the phone as his mother, Maria Luz Soriano, signed for packages delivered Christmas Day by Linda Brown (left), a special delivery clerk for the U.S. Postal Service.
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Amanda Kight knew her big brother in Phoenix was swamped with work, but still held out hope he wouldn't forget her on Christmas Day.
Just before noon yesterday, Linda Brown, a special delivery clerk for the U.S. Postal Service, arrived at Kight's Ocean Beach home with two packages.
"It was a surprise," Kight, 31, said later. "It was great that it came on Christmas morning."
From Oceanside to San Ysidro, postal workers delivered a little extra holiday cheer yesterday in the form of hundreds of last-minute packages. Many were shipped Express Mail in plain brown and white boxes. Some were gift-wrapped with a mailing label slapped on.
Express Mail is delivered every day, even on holidays. Last year, the post office also began delivering any package that looked like presents on Christmas Day "just knowing that it's important to a lot of people," said Troy Frye, manager of the Midway post office branch near the San Diego Sports Arena.
Kight said her brother, Brian, sent her a Christmas present and birthday gift Thursday – her birthday was Friday.
"This year he was real busy for work and waited until the last minute," she said.
Brown, a veteran of 26 Christmas Day shifts, said people are often surprised when mail arrives on a holiday, especially Christmas.
Making deliveries on Christmas, however, has its advantages.
"The nice thing about delivery on Christmas is that everyone's home," Brown said. "And, there's no traffic."
The drawback, she said, is being away from family and friends. When her three grown children were younger, she said, it was especially difficult.
Now that the youngest is 19, Brown said the shift isn't that bad. She and her husband, also a postal employee, both worked yesterday.
They were part of about 100 postal workers who pulled Christmas duty, said Frye, of the Midway branch.
The Midway office, which handles express mail, served as the clearing house for packages yesterday. About a dozen people sorted and delivered parcels. They also retrieved packages arriving on commercial flights throughout the day.
Postal workers from the county offices and 25 of the city's 27 stations also were on delivery duty, arriving about 9 a.m. to pick up packages.
So what were people getting on Christmas Day?
In Coronado, James Riley got jewelry from his partner in Alaska. Floyd Smith received a calendar, with pictures of family for each month, from a grandson in Florida.
In City Heights, Gregory Cruz and his family got boxes of clothes and shoes from his younger sister in Arizona.
And in Ocean Beach, Kight got computer software and stuffed monkeys from her brother, a general manager at a wax manufacturing company.
She almost missed the delivery. Because a signature was required, Brown, the postal worker, couldn't just leave the packages on the porch. After knocking on the door several times to no avail, she loaded the boxes back in her van and began to drive off.
That's when Kight ran outside and flagged the vehicle down.
The Christmas morning delivery, she said, made the holiday a little more special.
"I wasn't sure when it was going to show up," Kight said. "I was hoping."
Amy Oakes: (619) 498-6633; amy.oakes@uniontrib.com
