FEARGAL PURCELL, Chief Elf with AnPost, describes his day
AT THIS TIME of the year I am responsible for receiving the mail for Santa from children all around the country. I go through it to make sure there is no ordinary mail mixed in and, if there is only a partial return address, I Google and check directories to do the best I can to make sure people get their replies from Santa.
From here all the letters go up to the North Pole where the polar elves take over, sorting all the replies and getting them back to me for delivery today (December 19th).
I’ve been doing this job for three years. We take in around 120,000 Santa letters each year. This year the children’s reply has a nice cut-out-and-colour decoration they can hang on the tree.
The letters are lovely. Quite a few of them realise there’s a recession on and that it is harder for Santa to get the supplies he needs. Some have even asked for no present, just that Santa give presents to a poor child in the Third World instead. Others have about 20 things on their list.
We get funny ones too. I’ve quite a few I suspect are from more mature people, asking for a Colin Farrell lookalike boyfriend. I’m not sure Santa can do that but they’ll get a reply at least.
Santa particularly likes reading letters from children who are writing it themselves for the first time, but he enjoys all of them.
I’ve been to the North Pole. I drove a dog sled team across the arctic circle for charity and while I was there I took the time to meet my postal counterparts from the North Pole.
Unfortunately I didn’t get to meet Santa because it was March and he was resting, nor did I see Rudolph. But I did meet the polar elves and see other reindeers though.
Travel is actually my passion. This year alone I’ve been to the US, Holland, Tunisia, Paris and South America. I’m just back from Poland because I was over for the weekend arranging my wedding. I’m marrying a Polish girl.
I was a dancer previously, and travelled the world with Gaelforce. After travel, dancing’s my passion.
Santa letters start coming in from mid-November until the third week in December, so at the moment I’m exhausted. We also have a Santa letter box at the GPO, with music and singing between 1pm and 2pm each day, so I’ve been busy with that.
At the moment I’m just tidying up and getting ready to get back to the work I do for the rest of the year, which includes sorting requests from all around the world for team cards for the Sean Kelly Cycling Team, which An Post sponsors.
I finish up at around 6pm and go home. When I’m not working most of my downtime at the moment is spent learning Polish.
Feargal Purcell, Chief Elf, An Post
In conversation with Sandra O’Connell