PORTLAND, Ore. -- Dr. Kris Pollack didn’t know what to tell his 3-year-old daughter, Stella, when the Christmas presents didn’t arrive last week.

So he did what any parent might do -- he blamed it on Santa Claus.

“We told her that Vixen (the reindeer) was sick and Santa would be back when Vixen is better,” Pollack said.

UPS was slammed, just like everyone, when the winter storms hit Portland.

“Roads were closed, I-84, and the airport put passenger flights in front of cargo flights,” UPS spokesperson Mike Booth said.

In Hillsboro, Jeff Martens said UPS gave him the runaround, too. He ordered his wife a laptop and was given several conflicting answers as to where it was.

“They told me it was lost; they told me it wasn’t lost,” Martens said. “And then it was sitting in a trailer in Tualatin.”

He finally received a straight answer when he was connected with a UPS supervisor in Utah. 

The supervisor told him the laptop was in Tualatin, the weather was slowing the situation down, and that the tracking system just provided an “estimated time of arrival.”

“What made me the most angry is that they had the opportunity to tell me the truth from the get-go,” Martens said.

UPS told KGW the company does everything it can to get packages out on time.

“We do everything in our ability to service every single one of our customers. We are catching up for the delays caused by the storms. On Friday, we had a full crew and we were working around the clock,” Booth said.

The company also planned on putting its truck drivers to work on New Years Eve and New Years Day to make up for the delay.  Their goal was to have packages in customers’ hands by Friday.

Martens was forced to print out a picture of the laptop on Christmas morning for his wife.

“She told family that she opened up a piece of paper on Christmas,” he said.

At the Pollack household, Stella hopes Vixen gets better quick.

“She’s excited every day,” Pollack said.