Package tracking is so bad right now.

I know, it is the Christmas shopping season. A lot of places have beefed up their staff with temporary employees to help with the holiday rush (I too have been one of these employees). However, it still frustrates me how absolutely slow packages are coming through. I ordered most items online to avoid malls and the big box stores, but it is taking over a week for things to arrive or even for orders to be processed at all. It took bath and body works 6 business days to acknowledge my order. In this day and age, this shouldn't take so long. Want to know how they are compensating? They offered me free shipping....on my next order. I would rather they have taken off the shipping on my CURRENT order. In all honesty though, I'm not in a rush to get those unnecessary items; it's wondering whether the order went through or if there was a computer mistake down the line.

I also understand that there is/was inclement weather in the northeastern U.S. All except one package originate in the southwest region. Not to mention four of the tracking numbers have not been updated in 3+ days. What is going on?