Passage 1

  Among the throngs of American prowling the malls and trawling e-commerce sites,many are looking out for themselves.Retail-research firm NPD Group said,thus far,about one third of consumers have engaged in what is called self-gifting.That’s up from 12 percent in a typical prerecession year,and up from the 19 percent who said they planned to do so last year.The nationals Retail Federationk,the dispenser of all  holiday-related data,ssid in 2012,nearly 60 percent of shoppers would do so. 

  The latest step in the evolution of our burgeoning culture of narcissism?Yes.Self-gifting makes psychological and economic sense given what Americans have endured three years.

  THE PST-BUST(破产)ear has been a long,hard,heroic slog of balance-sheet improvement.Americans have labored to save money and hack away at the huge mountain of debt they accumulated druing the credit boom.According to the New Youk Federal Reserve, consumers have knocked down their aggregate debt load from $12.67 trillion in the third quarter of 2008 to $11.31 trillion in the third quarter of 2012;credit-card debt is off $192 billion from the peak.Americans have cut their load by spending more carefully and engaging in that most un-American of traits:self-abnegation.

  After living frugally for so much of the year and for so many years who can blame a parents at an Apply Store for buying herself a new iPad?Indeed,self-gifting may actually be a function of the new abstemiousness.Let’s say you’ve been holding off on relpacing your old television.Why not buy it around Noverber or December when insane promotions and free shipping are available?Besides,it’s not like self-gifters are solely interested in self-pleasure.An NRFsurvey said that the typical self-gifter would spend about $140 on himself this year.For comparison’s sake,the survey said the typical shopper would spent about $750 in all.

  After a long period of economic madness(remember the housing bubble and the dotcom mess),self-gifting is a sign of much-needed economic rationality.Shopping for others involves a certain amount of wrong guesswork with negative financial consequence.This year,for example,CEB Tower Group claims that Americans will load $110 billion onto gift cards and give them as presents.But the market-research firm says that about 1.6 percent of that total,about $1.7 billion,will go used.Meanwhile,a large percentage of gifts wind up getting of people reported returning at least some of their gifts.Returns induce guilt and raise the specter of uncomfortable conversations about what happened to that giant striped sweater.But more significant,returns are bad for the environment.They lead to more triops to themall,higher shipping costs,and the unnecessary use of packaging materials.

  These days,the rise of e-commerce means shopping is now antiseptic:sit and click.With the charm gone,we have to come up with other ways to make the experience pleasurable.

  As the song goes,”Have yourself a merry little Christmas”.