According to THAT song, on the 9th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, 9 ladies dancing.

Not forgettting the 8 maids a milking, 7 swans a-swimming, 6 geese a-laying, 5 gold rings, 4 calling birds, 3 french hens, 2 turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.

In fact, the correct lyric should be that on the 9th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a note saying ?Right, that's it! Christmas over, everything back to normal!?

It gets me every year.

As much as seeing Christmas fare in the shops in sodding September makes me wonder, so does the fact that by now you won't see any sign of Christmas in the shops.

In such a commercialised world, how is it that the last fews days of Christmas are completely ignored, as if they don't exist?

For the shops to create a 3 month hype to Christmas, and then cut it short just seems ludicrous to me.

Can anybody please point out if I'm missing something here!

In fact on Sunday, 2 days ago, *New Year's Eve!* I was in a shop and saw a big display of Easter Eggs.

I can tell you, I was THIS close to kicking the whole thing down, but I was stopped by the thought of some poor little 16 year old who didn't go to school every day, and was turned down by McDonald's, who had to create the display in the first which was bad enough, and would no doubt have to rebuild it on New Year's Day if I booted it down.

Hmm, I can feel another letter to Tesco's coming on...

So, here's the point, c'mon you knew I'd get to it in the end.

It's about seeing things through to the end.

It's one of the things I talk about in my self improvement book ?Transform Your Life?.

Starting on a course of action is often the hardest part of achieving anything, but then once we've started, it is unsurprisingly easy to stop before the end!

Stopping on the 8th/9th day of the 12 days of Christmas is just a great example.

The shops are leaving a lot of Christmas potential on the table after doing the hard work, it's just waiting there to be had.

Don't make this mistake in the things you do - see things through to the end, and take full advantage of the opportunities you create for yourself.