Whenever  I am lucky enough to go to the ocean, whether it is to stay in a friend’s house or a rented hotel, I always drive around the neighborhoods and look at the prime oceanfront properties.  Part of me continually wonders:  Who  are these people with all this money for these  huge and often very fine homes?  While the other part of me thinks: Boy, I sure wish I had one of these.  Truly I would “settle” for a simple 2000-square-foot-three bedroom with lots of windows and a study overlooking the sea were I to actually win the lottery or sell a book for a couple of million.

I really don’t want that much.  Honest.  Even as I admit to pitting against each other (sometimes  daily) two completely opposite worldviews: that of giving everything I own away and taking off for Africa or Afghanistan  to do good in opposition with finding a sugar daddy who will take good care of me and shower me with diamonds-- the more altruistic version of me always wins.

 That version with a gorgeous pair of leather boots, of course.  Like many women who grew up solidly middle class, only to have that status (but not its desires) taken away from them upon divorce, I naturally, have very mixed feelings about money in general. I like to spend it but hate the bills.  I waiver between thinking I deserve this or that and deciding that all of it is worthless.  And I spend way too much  money on my kids.   I am also one to never ever argue about a check. I will pick it up way before the adding machines come out.

 My biggest weakness, however, is gifts.  What I really like is finding things I think other people will like. If I can do that in conjunction with shopping for myself, I am in deep heaven.

Which is why, when Neiman Marcus’s The Christmas Book arrived this year, I actually opened it and looked through it, something I haven’t done in a long time.  I was curious to see what they had to offer in these lean times. And I found that while it isn’t as fat as in previous years , and there are no longer the millions-of- dollars items ( they have definitely downsized out of respect ) you can still find some amazingly outrageous presents between its pages.  Presents, that is, for all those people who own those beach houses we covet. All those people pulling down those bonuses we loathe. All those people who seem to still have money when by rights, NO ONE should have that kind of scratch.

How about  a Customized Cupcake Car for a mere $25,000?  Apparently this is the genius idea of one Lisa Pongrace of California, who showcased it as a cooperative car project at Burning Man.  It is described, accurately I would say from looking at the pictures as “a gift that is mind-blowing, triple-dog-dare, double-infinity forever cool.” All that for a mere 25 grand.

Or if your classy self takes over, you can always gift your love with a  $105,000 2010 Neiman Marcus edition Jaguar  which has been “totally re-imagined from the ground up,” as well it should be for those kinds of bucks.   And what man  in his right mind wouldn’t just love to have the “world’s fastest electric motorcycle” for a paltry $75,000?  Hell, that might even be the perfect graduation present for Junior, if you can keep it under wraps for a few more months.  Or if you and your partner are feeling, like totally, selfish, you can give each other the 2009 ICON A5 sports aircraft which has too many bells and whistles to list and comes with its own trailer as well as flying lessons.  This gift, which goes for a piddling $250,000 is targeted toward those for whom “the kids are healthy, the careers are under control, the in-laws are, well, still inlaws…(but) You’ve earned something special, just for the two of you.”

As if.

Nestled among those items are the usual  $695 leggings (if someone spends that kind o money on me I sure as hell don’t want it to be for leggings!), $1,350 boots,  and $1,650 handbags.  Had I had that kind of money would I spend that for boots and a handbag when I could have 5 pairs of boots and 8 handbags for the same price?  There are, naturally , the really low end things like an $85 snow globe, an “exclusive” popcorn tin (with popcorn, I hope) for $48 and a “faux-jewel stocking box and chocolates” for $50.  Those are just so you can say you gave something from  the store known for decades as Needless Markup.

I saw many things I liked.   Both for myself and others, like the “Algonquin Round Table Experience,” which includes dinner with some of  “the brightest minds  of modern literature, journalism and the arts,” for  $200,000, the total of which gets donated to charity.  If you can’t handle that but want to be good anyway, you can donate a book to First Book for only 25 bucks.  The thing is that you can’t know the guests ahead of time,  and I would rather be one of the invited luminaries than the one buying their time.

I do confess, however, to covering the Valentino Hobo in deep taupe for $2,395 and I would gladly accept the David Yurman diamond cuff at $17,000--although where the hell would I wear either of those things? That’s the problem with a catalogue like this:  everything truly gorgeous, like the evening gowns and accessories is not built for life in a small town in the South.   While everything affordable is really pretty tacky and undesirable.

That’s  kind of the problem with shopping in general when you aren’t wealthy.  What you want is beyond your means unless you’re willing to rack up those charges on a credit card (and I have been guilty of that, too), and what you can have is usually not worth it.

All this contemplation about shopping and gift giving goes to the mystery of Christmas in general.  At least for me.  As a Jew, I never celebrated Christmas at all and my parents were never big on the whole Hanukah thing,  being quite clear that the holidays were alike insomuch as to their calendar placement only.  Hanukah was never designed as a gift giving holiday and is actually a minor holiday to boot.  It’s only taken on the cloak of its present self as Jewish parents have tried to “make up” for the lack of Christmas in their children’s lives.  I did it, too, with the whole one-present-a-day-for-eight-days thing, which served me and the children ill as they had a non-Jewish father and we  all celebrated Christmas with his family in Florida each year. They racked up.   Now that they are older, I hand them a check and let the relatives do the shopping if they’re so inclined, although I will confess to collecting the odd bits and bobs for my teenaged daughter who still delights in opening things.

Apparently, though, people are supposed to go into debt for Christmas presents.  And the poorer you are the more debt you are supposed to go into.  This has been a ritual for years and I doubt, even with the recession, it will change.  Newscasters talking about Black Friday were already speculating about the $600 52-inch televisions that would be the door-buster special at some store at 5 a.m.   They seemed pretty certain that even those who were struggling to feed their kids would be in line to buy.  For years I’ve watched parents try to make up for the entire year’s deprivations on Christmas and it continues to baffle me.  As in fact the whole season baffles me.

Yes, I think I have the whole Bah Humbug thing going and always have.  While I love gifting others and finding those special items for birthdays or the odd special or not so special occasion, the hoopla around Christmas gift giving seems to cause more stress than joy.  People always say that the holiday is about peace and goodwill on earth, but what it seems to really be about is ostentatious displays that start earlier each year and last longer each season.  The excesses in the Neiman Marcus Christmas book are but the most glamorously over-the-top example. To a family making thirty grand a year, a thousand bucks in Christmas presents at Target or Wal-Mart is as much as a Jag might be to a wealthy man. And chances are the  man buying the Jag is writing a check, while the family is paying off last Christmas right  up until the next one.

I’m not a Scrooge.  Anyone who knows me knows I can spend money faster than I can type.  Which is pretty fast.  I’ve managed to 25- and 50-dollar my way into some serious credit card debt in my time, spending both on myself and on others, as well as doing that well-known “retail therapy” when the emotional chips were down. But I just don’t get the “if you really love me you’ll buy me a______________” syndrome, which seems to rear its ugly head, along with the “if you’re really good, you’ll get a_____________” bribe at this time of year.

 Holly Jolly, my ass.  If that’s the way to celebrate, I’ll take the $295 cashmere cardigan and let you off cheap.