What’s So Funny: Fie on fear — charge!

When I was a boy I knew what Christmas was about; it was about what I was going to get.

I was told that someday I’d get more enjoyment out of giving than getting, but I knew enough about myself to dismiss this. Good people like my mother might feel that way, but not me. I think this is how most boys first find out that they’re not good people.

Then, oddly, I grew up and found I got a bigger boost from giving family members something they liked than from opening my own packages — a boost composed of equal parts affectionate enjoyment and relief that this time I hadn’t picked something that would boomerang back to the store Dec. 26.

This year’s shopping zeal is undercut, however, by the knowledge that I don’t have much money to spare. Maybe you don’t either.

So what to do? If to save my remaining bankroll I tell everyone, “This year I’m making all your gifts out of things I’ve whittled,” I’ll be perceived as not only stiffing my family, but kicking the crutch out from under our collective economic Tiny Tim just as he’s getting out and around again.

Tom Lehrer and Linus Van Pelt used to decry the commercialization of the season, but today, Christmas shopping is the strongest moral imperative in our national life. It combines the obligation to give with the necessity to buy.

There is no greater social pressure in America. It’s bigger than green, more powerful than propriety. We could walk downtown naked and people wouldn’t hate us; in most cases they’d just pity us. But a refusal to support the holiday shopping structure is an attack on the community.

Like many men, I often say I don’t care what others think, but my attitude has boundaries. I don’t want to seem like a bad guy.

Besides, I get it. I see we’re all connected — implicated, you might say — in a system that depends on us all pitching in and buying things from each other, for each other.

So fie on economic fear. I’ll shop. I won’t just rely on online discounts, either; I’ll take a little walk downtown. And I’ll remember what Americans have told themselves for generations:

Hey, it’s Christmas; I’ll pay it off later.

SHERWOOD KIRALY is a Laguna Beach resident. He has written four novels, three of which were critically acclaimed. His novel, “Diminished Capacity,” is now available in bookstores, and the film version is available on DVD.