December Updates: A Christmas Guitar Story + New Lessons

Kristina shares a childhood story about Santa, guitars, and learning to actually play it – plus new lessons, lead guitar updates, and what’s coming next.

🎄 A Christmas guitar story (from Kristina)

“When I was around seven or eight, I came downstairs on Christmas morning and saw a huge guitar-shaped present under the tree. It said ‘From Santa to Dad.’

My mom gave my dad that look… the ‘you bought yourself another guitar?’ look. But she couldn’t say a word without blowing the whole Santa thing, so she just stood there silently disapproving while my dad pretended to be surprised.

This was not his first guitar. Or his fifth. Or even his tenth. He had a whole collection – about fifteen guitars by that point – and he couldn’t really play any of them. He just loved the idea of owning guitars.

There’s nothing wrong with collecting beautiful instruments. But looking back, I always wondered what it would’ve been like if he’d been able to strum a couple of songs for the family on Christmas morning. That piece – actually using the guitars he owned – was missing.

Later in life, he finally took lessons and learned his chords, and it completely changed things. That shift – from owning guitars to actually using one – has always stuck with me.

And honestly, it’s one of the reasons I fell for James. He didn’t have a fancy guitar. He had a cheap $200 acoustic… but he played it. And he played it for me.”

So with the holidays coming up…

What’s the one song you’d love to be playing confidently by this time next year?

If you’d like to share, just email me – we always enjoy hearing what people are working on.

🧾 Membership Updates

Still working on more updates to Learn Guitar Once-And-For-All. The interactive practice guide is 90% there! Just 2 more chapters and we’re done!

Added full song play-throughs for:

Added worksheets:

🎸 Join the All-Access Pass Here →

🎶 What I’ve Been Teaching Lately

Here are a few of the latest lessons I think you’ll enjoy:

Bohemian Rhapsody – Easy Fingerstyle Guitar Version – We expand on the earlier strumming lesson and add beautiful fingerpicked sections that capture the piano feel of the original.

Friends in Low Places – Garth Brooks – We cover the flatpicking intro pattern, the country-style walk-up, and the alternating-bass strumming that defines this classic.

Is Taylor Swift Actually a Good Guitarist? – Kristina loves her… I’m not so sure. The comment section really lit up for this one as we dig into her playing.