RALEIGH - Dog walkers everywhere have a Christmas wish. So do folks who collect trash, drop off mail, deliver newspapers, run elevators, clean pools and man the parking garage booths.

They'd like some holiday dough -- cash or fruitcake accepted.

Etiquette experts increasingly urge holiday tips for service workers -- often up to $30 apiece. The urging comes especially as Christmas bonuses dwindle, leaving the satisfied customer to spread cheer.

Shirley Venable still talks about the day last year when a North Raleigh man ran down his driveway to hand a $100 bill through the window of her city garbage truck, plus two fifties for the men on the back.

On Wednesday, Florence Vickers was sitting in the chilly booth inside a downtown Raleigh parking garage when a motorist extended a gift on his way in.

"Somebody just gave me a dollar!" said a gleeful Vickers, 64.

Part of the societal push for tipping comes through sympathy for low-wage workers, especially acute in Raleigh after sanitation crews walked out this year over long hours and absent pay.

Consider: More than 7 percent of Wake County residents live below the poverty line. The typical retail employee earns $388.93 a week, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. A garbage collector in Raleigh can earn as little as $19,000 a year. Any gift helps.

"Today a lady came out and gave everybody a box of cookies apiece," said Felix Butler who works on a Raleigh sanitation truck. "They're a lot more supportive this year."

But the Emily Post Institute in Vermont stresses tipping as a simple good-manners gesture, not unlike sending a thank-you card.

Trouble is, if you tipped everyone on the Post Institute's list, it's easy to drop more than $300.

"I definitely think about it and in past years, I'll be honest, I haven't given presents," said Mary Belle Pate, a southwest Raleigh community leader.

But this year, look for Moravian cookies.

Tipping can be traced to Boxing Day, the British tradition of giving gifts to service workers on the day after Christmas.

More recently, people dropped a few bits on the stoop for the milkman, said David Zonderman, a history professor at N.C. State University who specializes in labor issues.

Today, he said, "I think it may very well be linked to the decline of Christmas bonuses."

In a 2006 survey, the human resources consultant Hewitt Associates found that 52 of 300 surveyed companies had never offered holiday bonuses and 14 percent had canceled theirs.

In short, it's getting colder out there.

Cash not always best

Letter carriers cannot accept cash, and any gift must be worth less than $20, said Carl Watson, a U.S. Postal Service spokesman in Greensboro.

Most well-wishers leave a supermarket gift card in the mail slot, but more creative goods tend to show up on the stoop.

"I don't know about champagne," he said. "Fruitcake is probably one ..."

The same goes for newspaper carriers, who, working before dawn, are strangers to many customers.

"A lot of times folks will call us and ask who their carrier is and how to tip them," said Jim Puryear, vice president of circulation for The News & Observer, adding that there's a tip line on the bill. "Or (the callers) tell them to look in their mailbox. I know they're very appreciative."

Be sure to label gifts, or, better yet, hand them out personally. Leave a gift taped to the garbage can, and a rogue might drive by and take it. Not to mention the recycling crews, who would like their own gifts and often arrive first.

Teachers, after all, get their apples. Bosses get their "World's Best Boss" knickknacks, which tend to end up in drawers.

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