We give our postman Joe a box of chocolates every Christmas if I can catch him. He’s so nice and friendly.
My grandparents, in rural Tyrone, had a postman called Frank who came in and took tea with them EVERY DAY he delivered something. After he retired he still came to visit them 
My guy is so nice and my dog adores him (and the biscuits in his pocket of course). He is interested in Native Americans so I’m going to give him a packet of Native postcards since I have so many extras. Maybe he will mail them to his friends!
In the US you cannot give a gift in excess of $20, and I don’t see my mailman as we have a secured mailbox just down the street where s/he delivers the mail for several houses all at once.
When I collect my mail on Dec. 23, I put a post it note in my mailbox with a note: Mail carrier, please look in box before filling. I leave a card thanking him/her for their hard work with a gift card of $19.99 to Walmart or Amazon (Since I’m not sure if they can accept a gift $20 gift or less or less than $20.
This started a few years back the mail carrier at work mentioned that his son wanted to see Solo, but he complained that movie tickets are too expensive. I got him a $19.99 gift card for him, and another one for his son.
When he saw it he literally cried.
I love this thread! I rented a P.O. box for the first time, and the clerk who works at my PO box is delightful and has been so helpful. I’ve been stressing for ideas on what to give her to show my appreciation and there are some great ideas and info here. Thanks =]
Our mail is very different in Australia- you mail outgoing post in a large red box that should be in each suburb (at least one per suburb), but you receive mail delivered to your house’s letterbox. Up to February 2020 every red box collected mail til 5pm Mon to Fri at least (some were collected on Sunday by 5pm too).
Well by April 2020 the red box changed collection hours in my suburb to before 12pm so I have to trek a few suburbs over at minimum to find a red box that can accept mail before 4pm cutoff.
Mail used to be delivered 5 days a week- and that is in our legislation. There was a change approved by our federal government to that legislation so 3 months ago that changed to letter delivery just three days a week and as of the past couple of weeks it’s now 2 days a week. The other 3 days a week is allocated for parcel delivery by a totally different branch of our post service. That is, I’ve no clue who my regular postie is because there simply isn’t one any more.
Apparently that service reduction is because I’m in a non essential part of Canberra… and yet domestic postage went up every year for the past 3 years because of the demand 
The letter postie is supposed to be a salaried individual but I know for a fact the parcel deliveries are made by contractors. I haven’t had the same person deliver twice. (Meanwhile the senior post office staff bonuses get bigger and bigger every year despite it being a government owned enterprise. Two CEOs ago got paid something like 5mill just in bonuses or some such. It’s obscene. But not as obscene as that CEOs replacement taking barely a quarter of their income because they were female. That female CEO incidentally was hounded out of her job illegally by our Prime Minister… Yeah don’t ask.)
So as to gifting our postie I can say where I live I wouldn’t know how to do that let alone want to. It differs by area though.
In other rural areas where the postie can do a 1200km round trip they know who the person is very well… in still other small towns the postie (has a licence so pay Auspost a fee to be a post office where the town go to grab their mail) is also the pub owner and probably also volunteers for a few other things like the rural fire brigade (there won’t be a permanent fire brigade). The cop is probably in the next town over with the only doctor (a GP) or the flying doctor is the only way they get medical attention.
Its festive season here in India- it’s Diwali! 
During Diwali, we give friends and family sweets and dry fruits! I thought this year, we’d give every postal officer and delivery person some sweets to thank them for the job.
Day before yesterday, a delivery person came by and I gave him a small container of sweets- enough for himself and the driver of the truck they came in and his face lit up instantly. I think kindness is a gesture that shines through masks even without seeing the other person’s reaction.
We continued doing this and I feel like even without giving them anything, just wishing and thanking them does really help!
At this point, I think I’ve filled up like 5-6 take-away containers with sweets and dry fruits in the fridge in case any delivery person arrives!
