Anybody out there dreading the XMas season as a musician ?

A number of years ago I was asked to play guitar for a family Christmas party. I was honored and went about my duties, learning as many of these tunes as possible. And Christmas music, at least for guitar is NOT easy as far as I'm concerned. Most of the stuff is written for key boards and takes a good deal of work to get it down.

but the worst is when you actually get to the party. Why?
Well for one thing there's always someone who insists on tunes you don't know. some times they're bleeding obvious and you're going "How in H*** did I miss that?". other times it's the unbelievably obscure, but of course the requestee acts like everyone and their dog knows this tune, and what's your problem?

And then there's the keys! oh Lord what key to play in. In every crowd you've got one dame who figures she missed her calling and the Xmas bash is the time to "Blow us all away" and everything you play is too low or too high or what ever.

finally, you can't go anywhere from about November to the end of December without playing Xmas music almost exclusively. Everywhere you go it's this music, over and over, endless versions of the same songs, every day for TWO BLOODY MONTHS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!

okay. i think i'm better now. thanks for listening. bye. SB