BOISE -- With his Santa hat and sleigh bells, letter carrier Bryan Sperling is really in the Christmas spirit.

"This the busiest time for the US Postal Service," Sperling said, as he delivered mail in Boise. "This is when we like to shine and give everybody our best."

But with the ice and snow around the country, getting to mailboxes safely is a problem for letter carriers.

And Sperling says he's taken a tumble or two on the ice. "Yes, I have. Not often. But I have taken a tumble."

Some of those tumbles can be serious so the postal service is asking residential and business customers to make sure there's a clear path to mailboxes on sidewalks, steps, and porches.

Shoveling the snow helps, but the biggest threat is from ice.

"The underlying ice is what you really don't see a lot of times," Sperling said. "You think you're walking on soft snow, where you have a little bit if traction, but there's ice underneath."

The unofficial motto of the postal service is neither rain nor snow will keep the carriers from their appointed rounds and with the public's help, making those rounds will be a little easier this winter.