Christmas in a tough economy.

For Christmas this year, I ate government cheese and received gifts from a dumpster.

Two years ago I received a box of odd cat-themed items — ceramic figurines, containers, oddities — that looked as if someone had made a hurried run on a second-hand store. My sister Janet thought it was hilarious. I kept one cat figurine, labeling it with a note that said it had rabies, and got rid of all the rest of the stuff. I have my own clutter problems, and I didn’t think I needed to drag in some second-hand clutter for my collection.

No, I don’t collect cat stuff.

This year, I opened up a loosely wrapped box and discovered cat tins, cat toys, and a cat door hanger that was broken and didn’t even work.

“Thanks for the cat junk,” I said to Janet on the phone. “Some of it is broken and doesn’t even work.”

She burst into a spell of maniacal laughter.

“Where do you get this stuff, anyway,” I continued, curious as to what second-hand shop she was frequenting so that on my next visit to her I could burn it to the ground.

She explained that a friend had a relative down in Arizona who “dumpster dived” and would send all these cat things back to her. “We just went through her stuff and threw it in a box for you, like the last time. We had a blast.”

“Really.”

“Yes.”

“This came from the garbage down in Arizona.”

“Very likely, yes.”

After I hung up the phone, mom suggested that I give the broken door hanger to a child to play with because it was “kind of like a musical instrument.”

“What that is,” I said to my mom, shaking my head, “is a pile of firewood.”

The government cheese story is less illustrious and so I will spare you the details.