Claudia von Thrift — which is not her real name, but we’ll get to that — wants to make something clear. She is not one of those don’t-buy-anything-this-Christmas people. She is not looking to take an activist stance against conspicuous consumption. “I am as bougie as they come,” she said, reaching into her utensil drawer and pulling out a very expensive silver knife. She owns several of these, she said. She does buy lavish things. She will not apologize for spending extra money on anything she won’t need to replace.

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She went into a closet.

She emerged with a plaid winter trench coat from Burberry, the kind that would cost the month’s rent for a very nice apartment. A couple of decades ago, when Claudia von Thrift was in high school in Glen Ellyn, she wore this coat all

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