Maybe miracles happen on 34th, but the economy is still resting its head on 115,  and it’s starting to show in more ways then the scratchy, quel-horreurs-this-is-NOT-Frette linens and polyester-lined “bridge” collections now taking up floor space at what used to be our nation’s staid luxury retailers. Nope, this year it’s even hit a coveted Alyx tradition, the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book, which I always enjoy flipping through with one part delusion and one part derision. (Mom, you got my copy in the mail this week, right?) They’ve – gasp - cut back this year:

Neiman Marcus Group Inc. mailed out its annual Christmas Book catalog, which each year features over-the-top “fantasy” gifts, to one million customers on Tuesday. But for the first time in a decade, there isn’t a seven- or eight-figure price tag on the list.

Such gifts aren’t really expected to sell—just one of the $1 million-plus fantasy gifts in the past decade actually found a buyer. But the holiday catalog, which has included a handful of outrageous items since 1959—when Neiman put a Black Angus steer with a rolling roast-beef cart in its catalog—has long been the last word in luxury, a potent symbol of shoppers’ aspirations.

In general, you’d applaud the idea that they were no longer devoting precious catalog real estate to items that no one is going to buy anyway, but the quantity of free advertising they always got (both from luxury non-apologists and class-warfarists alike) in the form of press given to those outlandish items was well worth its weight in pages.  And when you think about what it says about our aspirations, it is a little depressing. The way the world is today, I have to accept that I may never own a Black Angus steer that pulls around its own roast-beef cart, or a $3.5MM Skycar. So the very thought that they’ve not included many indulgences very nearly made me faint, but after fanning myself a bit and retiring to my boudoir I was alright.  LoLo, Esq. brought me some rosewater and smelling salts too, at which point I was well enough to sit upright and type out this post in between my tears for a fallen era of excess. Now… who has a cupcake?