EVERYONE knows how much happiness Christmas brings but have you ever wondered how much work goes into making sure those vital cards and presents are delivered on time?

Santa's not so little helper, also known as Royal Mail, will see 143,000 postmen and women and 13,000 staff from Parcelforce Worldwide make the yuletide its annual success story.

In the four weeks up to Christmas this year, it is estimated that sorting offices up and down the country will handle 2.2 billion items.

On a normal day, Royal Mail deals with 80 million items. This rises to 140 million at Christmas.

As the festive season moves closer, at the sorting office in High Street, Evesham, 93 staff are preparing to sort through an estimated 100,000 cards and parcels each day as the Christmas rush begins.

Ricky Sault, delivery office manager, said the Christmas rush was just about to start.

He said: "We've been very busy so far but the Christmas rush is now just about to really hit us.

"We expect the back end of this week and next week to be the busiest time; that is when we will hit our peak."

He said that people could help themselves and the sorting office staff this Christmas by remembering to put the postcode on their items.

He added: "That's really important: I cannot emphasise it strongly enough. We still sort a percentage of the mail by hand in this office and, if it's marked with the postcode, then that's a great help to us."

Some of the letters the Evesham office sorts are letters to Father Christmas from boys and girls asking him to bring them a brand new bike or, maybe, a games console.

Royal Mail's Rosena Robson said that they handle around 750,000 letters to Santa.

"Our staff are always eager to provide Santa with as much help as possible and this year is no exception; however, Santa gets busier every year and to ensure that he can reply before the 25th, he's asked us to remind children to post their letters as early as possible."

She added: "Most correspondents to Santa are under 10 years old and write three types of letters: the Christmas present wish list, sad and very funny letters, and they all say they have been good all year!

Children yet to send a letter to him had better do so quickly, as Royal Mail recommends that all correspondence should be posted before December 14. Address letters to Santa Claus/Father Christmas, Reindeerland, SAN TA1. Mark all envelopes with a return address, so that Santa's helpers know where to reply to.

If you want your post to arrive in time for Christmas, the last delivery will be on December 24 and December 21 is the latest cards should be posted first class in order to make this delivery.

Second class cards should be posted by next Tuesday (December 18) and small items for Western Europe should be sent by tomorrow (Friday).