It’s beginning to look a lot like …

Yesterday I hit a rummage sale at one of the local churches. They were blasting out Christmas carols, which grates on my nerves. It’s not really that I’m Scroogey or that I hate Christmas music. I love Christmas and Christmas music — just not that handful of grindingly familiar tunes that assault hapless shoppers from all sides at this time of year.

There’s plenty of incredible seasonal music (as gloriously noted in the comment thread from last year’s Christmas post) and some perhaps not so incredible but also not like having somebody run a drill through your ear.

So I’m starting to get a headache from the combo of too much “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and the toddler whose mother is too busy bargain hunting to supervise him. Said toddler is cheerfully driving his stroller into my ankles while the music trips onward to “Silver Bells.” (His mother actually called him Monster when she paid attention to him at all. Not as in, “Stop that, you little monster!” but as if Monster were his name: “Hey, Monster. Do you like this?” and “Monster, let Mommy talk to the nice ladies.”)

The room is also heated to the point where I’m expecting an outbreak of Bikram yoga. But I’m determined not to leave because it’s $1 per bag hour and there’s good stuff lying around.

Then suddenly, all in a row, the music system spews out “I Saw Mommy Kissing Yog-Sothoth,” the “Carol of the Olde Ones,” and my very favorite (since Commentariat member RustyGunner blighted my life with Lovecraftian alt-carols), “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Fishmen.”

Of course, the music system in the church didn’t exactly blart out those exact versions of the songs. But close enough to get me singing to myself and laughing. I stuck around and filled up my bag.

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So for a buck, I ended up with two gorgeous wool sweaters, an incredibly funky vest, and about three dozen assorted electrical thingies:

But then they started playing the Most Dreaded Carol of Them All, the sappy, weepy, obnoxious, exceediingly unlikely, numbingly monotonous, what-kind-of-moron-ever-thought-of-that-in-the-first-place “Little Drummer Boy.”

And I made my escape.

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Amazon is having a “12 Days of Deals” promotion and I thought I’d play along by posting each day’s deal. Unlike the November ads, I get no bonus benefit if you use these links. Just tossing them out there because everybody’s in a ChristmaKwanzaaHannukahYule shopping mood.

Shop Amazon Devices – Kindle for Kids Bundle $10 Off

And a YUUUUGE thank you to those who used those ads, particularly that apple fan toward the end of the month. That was gigantic. For that matter, a yuuuuuge thank you to people who didn’t use the ads, but who regularly follow my Amazon links.