The important stuff doesn’t involve spending

According to a fresh report, Great Britain is catching up to the U.S. in a very ugly category.

A December poll by Zopa, an online lending agency, revealed that 34% of Britons will use credit cards or store cards to pay for their holiday purchases this year, and one in five say they are still paying off their gifts from last Christmas.

Further, the number of people filing for bankruptcy or insolvency in England and Wales rose 46% from 2004 to 2005 to a record, according to Britain’s Department of Trade and Industry.

The average Briton has $5,188 in credit card debt, according to a December survey by Datamonitor. In the U.S., the average debt per household is $9,312, according to CardWeb.com

Try as we might, Americans cannot shake the Christmas spending habit and now, apparently, it has become an American export. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, the shopping mania in Manhattan that begins just after Thanksgiving is amazing -- like someone hollered, “Go!”

You have to wonder where all these shoppers were just a few hours earlier.

It’s no different here. Christmas seems to be the one time of year when we are given the complete freedom to spend as much as we want, often on things that people don’t need or want, and very often with money we have not yet made.

There is a holiday song by Mariah Carey titled, “All I Want for Christmas is You” that is becoming a favorite in our home, mostly because of the bouncy tune.

All I really want for Christmas is for my family and friends to be healthy. With good health, anything is possible. When you are feeling bad, nothing seems worthwhile.

Everyone related to my brother-in-law, Lewis Hines, would forgo every Christmas gift this year in exchange for relief for him from the respiratory illness he has been fighting for several weeks.

And my former colleague Tina Harris, who is now in Lawrenceville, Ga., awaiting the January return of her fiance from his tour in Iraq. Tina would pass on every iPod, article of clothing or fruitcake in exchange for an assurance of Jason’s safe and timely return.

The blind man wants to see, the crippled man to walk. And the homeless family my wife and her colleagues have adopted for the holidays would like nothing more than some stability in their lives.

For all of these people, there is nothing of real value to be found inside the walls of any mall or in the pages of any catalog.

So why, then, the focus on the immaterial, the things that have no intrinsic value?

It’s a big question.

I can’t imagine any home that has been showering gifts on each other for years suddenly deciding to stop the ritual altogether. Kids would never understand, and even most adults would have a hard time grasping the concept of giving to charity instead of giving to a department store.

Pleading guilty as a power shopper, I’ve already spent plenty on gifts, although I must add that not a cent of it was charged -- all cash transactions.

As much as we may bash the gluttony of the holiday season, there is something to be said for offering a token of thought and appreciation. No, you don’t need another box of chocolates or a tie or a towel or a shirt or whatever it is you may get, but someone did think enough of you to make an effort to please you, to whatever degree you may be pleased.

Two days ago, my colleague, Sarah Medhin, gave me a box of orange pieces covered in dark chocolate. The cost was irrelevant, as was the fact that she gave the same gift to others. The thought really did count.

It also helped that the chocolates taste like Grand Marnier, which happens to be one of my favorites.

Avoiding excess is the key. As many times as I pass the gaudy parade of lights at the Trinity Broadcasting building in Costa Mesa and think immediately of excess, there is one pertinent message for all who celebrate Christmas.

High on the main building, the lights are arranged to spell “Happy Birthday, Jesus.”

So, Merry Christmas to you. Or Happy Hanukkah. Joy to you, and joy to the world.

* STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident. Readers may leave a message for him at (714) 966-4664 or send story ideas to [email protected].

20051224gzisd0ke(LA)