If you're hoping to exchange Christmas cards and gifts with friends and family in the UK you had better move quickly.
Britain's Royal Mail Service is being held to ransom by the demands of its 170,000 staff.
Strikes have caused delays, which are exasperating businesses and even threatening Christmas.
After 14 weeks of rolling strikes the postal union claims there are 25 million items of post backlogged in London alone.
"About 350 offices have been involved in strike action or industrial action of some sort," says Ray Ellis of the Postal Union. "People are getting their mail a week late. Small businesses are being asphyxiated."
"You know you order something, it would normally come next day," says business owner Frank Merritt. "Now it takes five or six days if you're lucky."
The Guardian newspaper put the Royal Mail to the test by posting over 100 letters from London to various locations around the country.
The results were bizarre – while a letter to a remote Scottish island almost 900km away arrived the next day, a letter to a north London address just 7km away took six days to get there, making it quicker to deliver your mail by foot.
The union is now debating a national walkout, but Royal Mail insists they are in talks to stop that happening.
"There are a number of conversations and attempts for people to work normally and work the hours that they are paid for," says Rob Jenson.
But if an agreement is not reached soon, postal workers are warning Christmas cards and gifts will only arrive in time if they are sent in the next three weeks, which doesn't leave very much time for Christmas shopping.
http://www.3news.co.nz/Strike-cripples-Britains-mail-service/tabid/209/articleID/123905/cat/61/Default.aspx?ArticleID=123905