I feel like an elf. I've always said that Royal Mail is Santa Claus and all the little posties are elves. Maybe we should dress up? It's a production line and because it's Christmas we've got stacks of presents to deliver.
For me, Christmas starts in mid-November. That's when we begin delivering Christmas parcels. Being a postie is really different at Christmas time: the mail gets a lot bigger and heavier with parcels, Christmas cards and brochures. It's hectic.
My day starts at 7:15am and the first few hours are spent in the sorting office. We get out later and later because there is more mail to prep and more parcels to sort. Trucks of parcels arrive and it's our job to figure out what's going where.
As soon as you hit December, the Christmas cards start. They can be horrendous because they often don't go through the machines properly, so you've got to manually sort them. You get a lot of cards where people haven't put the right address on. I like to find where every card is going to, so I'll go and look it up and try to find the address, but it can be tricky. I don't like to send Christmas cards back if I possibly can.
People also use silver pens and glitter pens a lot, which looks really nice. But when you're sorting them and the light is reflecting on it, it can be really hard to read the address.
It can be tricky getting around in the winter. I'm in Lancashire where it's quite rural. We wear spikes on our shoes in the ice and chains in the snow. But everything is a lot, lot slower. You can't just run down some steps when it's slippery. We go out in wind, rain, snow, ice, anything.
Sometimes, it can be sad. If people aren't in, you have to bring the parcels back. But I really don't like doing that on Christmas Eve, because I know that it could be a Christmas present for someone.
There's always post to be delivered. I get Christmas Day and Boxing Day off, and then we're back in. I hope people appreciate the work that goes in to delivering presents. We try our hardest to get things to the right address.
The older generation often like to give the postie a Christmas tip. But a lot of the time, I get chocolates, sweets or a bottle of wine.
When I look under the Christmas tree, I think if it wasn't for me and my colleagues, they probably wouldn't be there.
This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To get more content and advice like this direct to your inbox, sign up for our weekly update and careers ebook.
