I was going to make a cryptmas tree but nah, too much expense.

Litecoinpool does not work for me at all. I'm in the US on KDE Neon. I switched to http://give-me-coins.com/litecoin-pool and I haven't had any problems.
In fact I'm getting 3 other coins free if I mine litecoin.
PTC, DOGE and VIA
If I'm understanding merge mining correctly.