Gold in Boca, Abu Dhabi too and if Santa charged Christmas, oh my

By Dian Vujovich

By now we’ve all heard that there’s a gold vending machine in Boca’s Town Center Mall. Something, no doubt, everyone has been holding their breathe in anticipation of.

Topping that, however, could be the bejeweled golden Christmas tree in the lobby of the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi. It’s a 40-foot fake one—that’s about the same size as Rush’s is on our Worth Avenue.

Instead of traditional holiday ornaments, this baby is decked with silver and gold bows and strings of diamonds, pearls, emeralds, sapphires etc. In other words, it’s dressed to kill. And, has an estimated value of over 11 million bucks.

Gotta love the United Arab Emirates where the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi, it’s capital, is located. It’s a hot little desert country about the size of Maine with a sense of glitz no Mainiac could even begin to imagine.

Having lots of money to spend on gold stuff— or show it off—at a time when gold prices are at all time highs, however, isn’t exactly practical. But during the holiday season, we often aren’t practical. But that’s okay. Giving is good. Receiving, too.

Charging our giving, on the other hand, not so hot.

Read a piece the other day about the minimum monthly payment Santa would have to cough up in 2011 if he were to charge all the Christmas gifts he gave out. It’s not pretty—unlike the two trees just mentioned.

According to a recent CreditCards.com story, there are 50.4 million kids under the age of 11 in America. If Santa would supply all with gifts valued at $25 each, his seasonal spending spree would tally roughly $1.36 billion.

Have a card with a 12 percent interest rate on it and Mr. Ho Ho Ho would be out of pocket $27,216,000. a month for the next 46- plus years. That’s if he’s only making the minimum amount due each month.

And, it would take 46.4 years to pay that baby off.

But we know Santa wouldn’t do that. If he did, gads, Christmas would be canceled for years to come. So, to pay that card balance off in one year, and before next December, this jolly guy would need to make payments of $127 million a month.

The moral of this story is: If you’re going to buy every kid in America a gift this Christmas, use cash.

Read more about Santa and his pretend holiday charging spree at: http://tinyurl.com/2a5mwdj .