I've mentioned before that we also own a DVD business specializing in corporate education and marketing. When you have a deadline, sometimes it takes ALL your man power to meet the deadline. We have been known to tell the client something like this: We can either have meetings to talk about getting your work done OR we can just work on getting your work done, but we can't do both. I suspect that she is working around the clock to get this series done for the January fitness boom. It really is very stressful to put out an excellent product and it requires a lot of attention to detail, watching what seems like the same thing, over and over again, looking for different kinds of details every time. (programming, transitions, sound-synch, as well as "mystery errors" that sometimes take hours to figure out) If she were to keep this group updated and fully "in the know," she would really need a part time public relations manager which would add to the cost of DVDs. I doubt that Christmas shopping is much of a factor here.
I'm a little bit obsessive compulsive myself, so I'm also checking like crazy for updates, but I DO know what she's going through, so its very easy to imagine why she doesn't have time for posting here on the forums. She might have thought she would have more time for it, but sometimes it just takes more time than you thought it would.
I hope she's having smooth sailing!!