Would you like some cognitive dissonance with that?

It’s a strange holiday season. Wouldn’t you agree?

Everywhere I go, I seem to see two worldviews (for lack of a better word) in competition. There’s the old “consume, consume, consume” mentality that is unsustainable and–apparently–on the way out. Not that you’d know it to walk into most stores. And then there’s this widespread, sort of gnawing neediness and thriftiness surging all around.

Today, I had a couple extra hours and wanted to finish up a few bits of Christmas shopping. I thought I’d hit midtown, with a quick trip to the Macy’s at Downtown Plaza to check out a new coffeemaker for Tater. Trying to earn my “shop local” street cred, I popped in at a few local merchants. I bought nothing. I simply couldn’t find anything I wanted to get for the people on my (very short) list. Thinking I’d take the easy way out, I headed to the mall.

Nothing like a mall to make you regret your entire existence.

After wandering around like an insane and rather lost person, I left emptyhanded and equally empty hearted. I just *couldn’t* buy anything. My thought process went something like this: Oh, Uncle Roscoe would love this. But it’s expensive. And I don’t know if Uncle Roscoe would ever use it. What if it just sat there in a closet, never used, a complete waste of money? Instead of wasting that money, maybe I should just send a check to Heifer International and tell Uncle Roscoe I bought him part of a water buffalo?

See what I mean?

On the flip side of all this dithering, I’ve been feeling as though I am among the fortunate this year. As I’ve watched the financial meltdown, seen colleagues and acquaintances lose their jobs, I keep remonstrating with myself: I should save more. I should spend less. I should definitely spend less on myself. I should give more. I should shut up and be thankful.

I stopped at Safeway on the way home and bought gift cards for several people who I figured would hate anything I picked out for them and would appreciate a little spending money. I also bought a box of chocolates for an awesome co-worker whose presence in our office is the only thing that maintains my questionable sanity on some days. What the hell.

To snap myself out of it, I’m watching Flight of the Conchords–specifically, the She’s so hot – Boom, Boom song episode.