Holiday Hodgepodge

Is there a synonym for hodgepodge? How many times can I use this title for a blog post? I feel like I use "hodgepodge" every other blog post. I wonder if I can come up with alternatives...

Let's see, there's:

Christmas Conglomeration
A Merry Mixed Bag
A Merry Melange
Xmas Mishmash -- maybe my fave
Joyful Jumble
Rosy Ragbag

Alright, I feel like that was pretty successful.  In terms of similar phrases and silliness, obviously hodgepodge, mishmash and ragbag are all cousins and deserve a spot in the forefront of our vocabularies*. 

*Also, your challenge is to use "gallimaufry" in a title like this.

I could probably call today's post Surly Holiday Hodgepodge or Cross Christmas or Nettled Noel. The day's been fine but  I just wanted to get on here real quick and bulletize a few things about my day as a way of making inconsequential things into something much larger and even more irritating. 

• First,  I'm really not sure how I feel about made-up Christmas songs.  I have a pandora station called Six Pence None the Richer (holiday) because they have some stellar Xmas songs. (O Come O Come Emmanuel, for instance) Those of you unfortunate enough to having been made to endure that failure of a musical decade called the 90's may remember this outlier and their hit Kiss Me one of the few acceptable songs to come away from that sad, very confused time.  But I was listening to one song today called River and I: first, hated it. Second, saw it was SPNTR and gave it a second chance, then third, hated it.  I wasn't listening to the words too closely but amidst my disgust, heard the words "I made my baby cry" which made me laugh.  Now, she was probably singing about a love of hers, a romantic partner. But Sean and I are not "Baby/babe" people (we tried it once for one day via texts and felt utterly ridiculous. We still do it from time to time just to be idiots: "thanks babe!"  "sure thing, babe!")  so immediately my brain went to, like, she made her infant child cry.  And that's horrible.  And funny.  To put in a song, esp a Christmas song, I'm sorry "Christmas" song. Say it to yourself.  See? You're laughing. 

•  Second, (listing numbers within bullets is probably unnecessarily, huh)  Gloria Estefan isn't my fave and I'm not even sure if this was her so sorry, Gloria if this wasn't yours but while carting down endless aisle after aisle at the grocery, losing all track of time and space and whatever it is that makes me a living, breathing human being, I heard the most horrendous version of Jingle Bells and it really made me want to punch. 
  
  Listen to this: so at one point instead of "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way" 
  
  the words were,
  
  "la la la, la la la, la la la la HEY."  
  
  {face palm emoji}   Whyyyyy.   It's like they forgot the words in the studio and just improvised, then thought that sounded pretty good so they kept it.   

• Third, and you tell me if I'm way out of line here,  I was at the checkout and i had a 3/4 full cart. I pulled up a bit so as to start placing items on the conveyor belt a little closer to the check-out person.  She started scanning my items and I was keeping pace with her as she moved the belt onward.  Then, with still a half cart-ful to go, a woman pulled up behind me and started emptying her cart on the conveyor belt. The belt would move, she'd add more stuff.  What the hey?? So that I had less and less room to put stuff down until the checkout woman stopped it altogether and scanned the items and I'd just have to wait until there was space. She apologized and as I gave some serious side eye to a gloriously oblivious woman behind me, said, "Oh you're fine, i'll just construct a pyramid here with my food items..."    
  
  Maybe "la la la la HEY" had me already rankled (or, more likely, having been at the store for infinity time)  but did I forfeit my conveyor belt by coming in with my cart and leaving the end exposed? Is the conveyor belt not mine until transaction complete or at least groceries scanned?  Did this woman overstep?   Did she infringe the laws of supermarket etiquette? 

• Last, to cheer me, an unrelated Sean quote from the kitchen.  We have a fruit stand that's sort of a tiered bowl-type thing. 
  
  SEAN: You guys are in the top spot now!
  
  JEN: hmm?
  
  SEAN:  Talking to the bananas...

{squint eye, big smile emoji}