The presents are wrapped, the turkey collected and it is time to celebrate the birth of Christ with the peculiarly British rituals we know and love.

I spent ten years living in the USA where Christmas plays second fiddle to Thanksgiving and so I tried every year, with difficulty, to recreate the 1970s festivities of my childhood with imported crackers (banned on some flights to the States), homemade Christmas pudding (unknown across the Atlantic and sampled by American friends only with caution) and old tapes of Slade’s Merry Christmas Everybody drowning out Elvis’s Blue Christmas.

It was all quite tricky and when I moved back to Britain I was delighted to throw myself into the Christmas whirlwind with gusto.

These days my festive preparations are tempered by the need to attend to local casework and fit in visits like the one I made this week to say thank you to the local postmen and women who make sure all the parcels and cards get to us on time (unlike some well-known courier companies, Royal Mail don’t just say “Ooops, sorry” and fail to deliver but just get on with the job).

I also have to make sure that there are no loose ends in my ministerial portfolio as we come to one of the busiest periods on the railway – in engineering terms that is.

More than 10,000 Network Rail employees will be working over the holiday period on thousands of engineering projects across the country, carrying out the biggest upgrade of the network since Victorian times.

It was ex-Barclays boss Sir John Quinton who said politicians are people who, when they see the light at the end of the tunnel, order more tunnel. Well not any more as many big rail projects come to fruition and we can see the light at the end of the Crossrail tunnels.

They are almost complete and trains will be running through them in three years’ time, transforming east to west travel across London. A highlight of 2014 for me was driving one of the 150-metre- long tunnelling machines – an experience I will never forget.

Looking forward to next year, the tempo will only increase as the 2015 election bears down upon us. I can’t quite believe that it has been more than four years since I was elected as your MP.

It has gone by in a flash, but I remain as proud as ever to represent you in Westminster and may I wish all of you a very Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year.