Royal Mail has revealed the areas facing disruptions for deliveries over the Christmas Period.
St Helens was named among the 25 offices struggling to meet demand.
As a result, people expecting important letters as well as Christmas cards from family have been left waiting.
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Royal Mail say that the the disruptions are a result of staff absences due to Covid-19, with many staff being testing positive or being forced to self-isolate.
One person told the ECHO: " I missed hospital appointments and paid for a 48 hour special delivery for something and it took nine days to get here!"
While another St Helens resident said: "There's no mail for two weeks at a time sometimes recently.
"The offices are rammed full of parcels and letters with no one to deliver them."
One customer claims to have been waiting for a parcel through Royal Mail for over a month, they said: "I ordered something on November 5 for my mum's birthday and it has still not turned up, until today I kept being told Royal Mail would deliver it but now it has been lost."
A source at Royal Mail said the internal situation is "horrific" and claimed: "It's much worse than a normal Christmas."
A notice on the Royal Mail website reads: “Deliveries are operating as normal across most of the country.
"We aim to deliver to all addresses we have mail for, six days a week.
"In a small number of local offices this may temporarily not be possible due to local issues such as COVID-related self-isolation, high levels of sick absence, resourcing, or other local factors.
"In those cases we will rotate deliveries to minimise the delay to individual customers.
"We also provide targeted support to those offices to address their challenges and restore our service to the high standard our customers would normally receive.”
