LANESBOROUGH — It only takes the delivery of a single package to make it worth it for Postmaster Robert “Bob” Maloy to show up at work as a volunteer on Christmas morning.

“I live for this now,” he said. “It’s awesome.”

As this town’s postmaster since 2012, he’s opened the doors for package delivery every Christmas — a federal holiday when most post offices are closed — so that any last-minute deliveries from the North Pole — or elsewhere — make it under the Christmas tree in time.

He put a post out on social media earlier in the week so Lanesborough residents would know they could stop by, to which there was an appreciative response.

Maloy first began Christmas morning duty when he was a supervisor in the North Adams Post Office.

That year he had no one to drive Express packages. So, accompanied by his youngest son, who dressed as an elf, he made the rounds. His son made the first delivery.

“The first package we delivered was an Express piece that was the main gift for the whole household, and they just went nuts,” Maloy said. “Ever since then, it’s just something I do.”

On Thursday, Maloy opened the doors at Lanesborough Post Office at 545 S. Main St. for package delivery only from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m.  The gates were up at the clerks’ stations, but he was in back, wearing his green and red plaid shirt and a baseball cap.

He actually used to do this for two hours each Christmas morning but found the second hour wasn't necessary.

Peering over his glasses Santa-style, he offered a smile to a visitor who tapped on the window.

“There’s probably 20 Christmas gifts back there right now,” Maloy said. “I’m just guessing because I can’t obviously see them.”

Maloy, 60, was born in Pittsfield, one of four children of Edward and Sandra Maloy. He graduated from Taconic High School in 1982 and got his first job delivering soda for Coca Cola in high school.

When he was 22, he took the civil service exam hoping for job security at the United States Postal Service. He got it.

He started off as a clerk in the Pittsfield Post Office, where he spent 15 years sorting mail but with punishing shifts starting at midnight or at 10:30 a.m. until 7 p.m.

Then someone offered him that supervisory role in North Adams for three years. He later returned to Pittsfield as carrier supervisor — with better hours than his initial work sorting mail in back.

During that stint, he spent time at the Lanesborough post office as officer in charge after a postmaster left.

When the job opened up, he applied.

“It’s a small community," he said. "Everybody knows each other. There’s not a lot of delivery in Lanesborough, so 400 or 500 people walk through that door every day to go to their P.O. boxes. It’s like family now. Yeah, I love it here.”

So how did Maloy spend the rest of his holiday?

On Christmas Eve, his three children and six grandchildren visited him and his wife, Celeste.

And on Thursday, after closing promptly at 9:30 a.m., he went home to Pittsfield to prepare sausage, peppers and onions to take at his parents’ place in Pittsfield, where his two sisters and brother and their families were planning to descend in a gathering expected to bring 46 people.

Before packing up to be with family, four people stopped by for their packages.

“If I get one, it makes my day,” Maloy said.