The gifts that keep on living

FOR US, EACH Christmas is a renaissance of gift giving and love. An American renaissance. I’m our Da Vinci -- creative and a little loopy.

For example, this year I’m giving my wife 100 shares of Exxon Mobil, the gift that keeps on giving. I had to sell the car to do it and second-mortgage my soul. But it seemed worth it. You don’t really need a soul when trafficking in petroleum futures. In fact, a soul will just work against you. In today’s economy, people with souls are at a competitive disadvantage.

But that’s not all. I’m also putting a bet down for her on the Rose Bowl.

Serious money, maybe $100. How romantic is that? Just remember, mama, that the team with the best quarterback usually wins. That’s all I’m gonna say.

“I say ... Texas,” she says.

“You do?” Well, it’s Christmas, a traditional time for throwing my money away. But who knows. I’ll still look forward to the look in her eyes when she covers the spread on Jan. 4, just before the vice squad kicks in the door and carts her away. I’m putting the bet down in her name, not mine. What, you think I’m an idiot? I’ve been through too many Christmases to make a bush league mistake like that. My Christmas gift to you is this advice: Always use an alias.

I know a lot about Christmas, most of it gleaned from Methodists and Mendelssohn, “Peanuts” cartoons and Target ads. Here’s what you really need to know about Christmas: For kids, just find the thing that most annoys you -- something that buzzes, hums, squeals or quacks -- and buy it in great quantities.

Children have always been attracted to the loudest noises and the worst ways to spend their idle time. It goes back thousands of years. Trust me, I’m that old.

So buy them iPods and cellphones and that new PlayStation, whatever it is. What the heck, society doesn’t really need their generation. Besides, these kids will probably come around when they get a glimpse of housing prices and the cost of a new sedan. They’ll become more routine in their habits, more reliable, asleep by midnight. They’ll come around. So buy them as much noisy stuff as possible now, before we give them keys to the world, a troubled place, sure, but not beyond hope.

For friends, I usually buy booze, which is gone by New Year’s, or cigars, which are gone by the following Tuesday. Friends are easy. If they don’t drink, I buy something that I need, give it to them, then borrow it back in March.

Friends are wonderful that way. You can never have too many friends.

For spouses, gift giving is much more difficult. Naughty jammies. Been there.

Trip to Carmel. Done that. Provocative how-to tapes. It’s Christmas, not your honeymoon.

So the best thing to do with spouses is to surprise them with some activity: tickets to concerts or ballgames; spa treatments; flying lessons.

Spouses are hard, because over the years you give them so much: houses, cars, migraines, endless grief.

Oh, and don’t forget those other little gifts, the kind even the Magi couldn’t top. They come in every size, every shape, every color. Kids. They’re nonreturnable is the thing. Imagine if you could return kids? Imagine the lines?

Anyway, more than 20 years ago, I started giving her kids who generally seem to arrive around the holidays, though I’ve been unable to time one just right. One arrived in early December; another in January. Drats. Fortunately, close only counts in hand grenades and fatherhood.

Included in this matched set of children is a strapping, square-jawed son and two daughters who look a little like me. They don’t have my swimmer’s shoulders, but they have my Irish eyes. God bless ‘em, squinting into the late-autumn sun, looking for their mother in the Macy’s parking lot. If you don’t love them then, you never will.

Then there is the latest present, a doe-eyed toddler who arrived in the winter storm of middle age, the gift of gifts, wrapped in his own good cheer.

Endlessly happy. Drunk on sunlight. He thinks cheese sticks are sirloin and snowflakes are diamonds.

It’s not much, what I’ve given her. But it’s a life. Full of births and rebirths. No refunds. No returns.

Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.