I’m happy to report I’m more or less finished with the Christmas shopping chores for 2006, but I’m rather disappointed in myself again. This was to be THE year I got all of that stuff done in September or October instead of waiting until December to knock it all out. This is probably the 10th year in a row I’ve told myself that, but it hasn’t happened yet. Thank goodness for Amazon.com and E-bay as they saved me a lot of headache by enabling me to avoid the messes that are the shopping malls and popular outlets.

I am not a fan of crowds unless it’s a sporting event or concert. Crowds attract masses of idiots who can’t make the simplest of decisions, and they seem to draw in that mom with three or four kids she can’t control yet she yells at the kids while attempting to shop as if the other people in the store can’t hear her or will have sympathy for her. I’m sorry, but I have zero tolerance for that nonsense! If you can’t control your kids, you don’t need to take them out in public to embarrass you because that’s what they’re going to do. They know when they have mom in a pickle, and they’ll exploit that with little to no hesitation. It’s punishment for being an overzealous and overprotective parent. Full Disclosure: I’m in no position to give parenting advice since I don’t have kids for which I’m responsible, but I seem to see a lot of kids these days that have parents who have forgotten what it’s like to be a kid so they try to control their kids in an attempt to “protect” them. It’s not going to work–kids will be kids. Anyway, I digress.

The point of this was to be how time got away and how the lesson to be learned is not to procrastinate, but I’m obviously in no position to give Christmas preparation advice to anyone since I always tell myself that “this is the year.” Next year will now have to be that year. Oh yeah, another pointed takeaway is don’t take your kids with you to shop thinking it’ll be cute when they misbehave and force you to make a scene. You know exactly who you are so don’t play coy like your kids are somehow different.

I’m done rambling about pretty much nothing. Another season is almost in the books so the focus can return to helping clients achieve greatness. Are you ready to propel your firm to greatness in 2007?

I hope you have a great holiday, and please share your perspectives with us.