Owl Post/Mail Question

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 35226

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., NOTaMuggleFamily at a... wrote:
> Does anyone have an idea how Harry gets a card and *gift* 
from the Dursleys 
> each Christmas?  I can't imagine them using an Owl, unless 
good ol'Hedwig was 
> fluttering around constantly...yet no mail carrier would deliver to 
> Hogwarts...maybe a witch comes to the door offering to pick up 
the 
> letter/gift the Dursley's *surely* would want to have delivered?  

Some theories, not all original with me:
1) Hedwig shows up and *shrieks* till they give her a present 
and a card.
2) There is a Post Office box which collects mail for wizards and 
forwards it via owl. 

Theories about why the Dursleys send a present:
1) They have to, or they'll be cursed
2) It makes good comic relief
3) It's a joke about those old British patents of nobility which 
provide that the Earl of So-and-so has to deliver one butt of 
malmsey every December 25th if he wants to keep his title. The 
Dursleys have to give Harry a present or they will lose the (purely 
hypothetical) stipend they have been collecting from the Ministry 
for looking after him (paid in pounds, not galleons of course).

Pippin