It has been an interesting December to say the least.  I have been from the “79 and Sunny” of Rancho Santa Margarita to the subzero climate of Eden Prairie for the Milestone annual meeting, I have had to break the reality of Christmas traditions to my 10 year old daughter, and I have fought the hustle and bustle of Christmas shopping from LA to San Diego.  However, the most interesting Christmas development came to me in the form of some misplaced mail.

I went with my 7 year old son to the mailbox to check for our last round of Christmas cards, and lying on the ground, was a small stack of letters.  My mail man in Rancho Santa Margarita is terrible, so this was really no surprise.  Most of our cards this year were delivered to the neighbors mailboxes and hand delivered to our door by some of the “real” housewives of OC.  I picked up the stack, expecting to have to deliver it to a neighbor, but instead found that the letters were not addressed to anyone on our block.  Instead it was a stack of about 25 “Letters to Santa”.

I have to admit that my curiosity got the better of me and I flipped through a few, just looking at the return addresses.  I found a couple gems that seemed very relevant to the AV Industry.  I thought about scanning them and posting them in their original form, but with the litigious state of our society and the penalties related to outright mail thievery, I decided instead to just post some excerpts and the authors’ names.

Sure some may be skeptical that I actually have them, but Santa and I know the truth, so that will just have to be enough!

Dear Santa,

For Christmas this year I would like you to please bring me some creativity.  First I made the iPad smaller, then I made it thinner, and next I may make it half as wide (I call it the iPad Skinny).  I have also made the iPhone in some Sherbet inspired hues.  Frankly, I’m out of ideas now so anything you can offer is appreciated.

I would leave you some “Milk and Cookies”, but I think that is the name of the new Android OS coming out this spring.

Merry Christmas,

Timmy Cook

Apple

Dear Santa Claus,

I know we made the naughty list the last couple years by flooding the commercial market with cheap consumer grade 70, 80, and 90” LCD screens.  By our own admission, some of them are so flimsy you can’t even tilt them 15 degrees on a mount, as the case may break and drop the glass on the floor. 

All that aside, I have been selling them at prices well below our competitors.  I hope that you see this as a “good” deed and can honor our request.  It seems that somehow we have been unable to make a profit with this strategy and I’d ask you to please bring us some profit margin for Christmas this year.  Even a few extra bucks could be helpful!

Merry Christmas!

Johnny Herrington

Sharp Electronics

 

Dear Santa,

I’ve been really good this year!  I finally came to the realization that we are actually a big showroom for people who shop at Amazon, so I adjusted our marketing strategy to just say it out loud.  I’m hoping that will bring in the dollars we have been asking you for the last few years.

This year I’m just asking for some extra foot traffic.  I know in years past you have had us on the naughty list for sending Geeks out to commercial jobs with little to no knowledge of distributed audio, DSP, video extension, etc.  We haven’t exactly stopped yet, but let’s face it, the word is getting out, so we really don’t need to take it off our menu formally do we?

Please grant my wish, or if you can’t, I’d love you to give me my second choice of a gift this year, an introduction to the real estate buyers for Burlington Coat Factory.  I may have some extra square footage on my hands soon…

Merry Christmas!

Hubert “Huey” Joly

Best Buy

Dear Santa,

Can you please send me some nonfiction books for Christmas?  It seems I have been reading way too much SciFi.  It caused me to go all “Kurzweil” in my last interview, talking about drones delivering our products the same day and dropping them in people’s front yards.

Merry Christmas!

Little Jeffrey Bezos

P.S. Can you also send AV Phenom whatever he asked for this year, I really enjoyed his last blog on Barnes and Not-So-Noble!