I highly doubt it's coming on in late December. If it was just over a month away, we would have heard something official from SE. I think that a early 2005 release is a lot more realistic.
I also doubt that it will be released in '06. Sony announced that they'll have a playable version of the PS3 at E3 of '05. That means that system will be out in 2006. I don't think they want to push the release of FFXII too close to the PS3 release. If they can, they'll probably try to move on and get FFXIII out for the PS3 as close as they can and make it an early title for the system. Financially, it just makes sense.