(RNS) It’s hard to gauge just how many Americans feel broke this Christmas.

Those who feel broke don’t want to talk about it. Those who sell to the broke are hoping they don’t give in to discouragement. And those who brought about this mess are spending lavish bonuses and catering to the rich.

But as far as I can tell, the broke are legion.

Government employment statistics tend to undercount job-related despair. They don’t report those who have given up looking for work; those who need full-time work but have accepted part-time jobs; those who did find work but at far below their last reasonable paycheck; or those who are ready to retire but are clinging to jobs for as long as they can.

By the time we add those categories to the official unemployment figure of nearly 10 percent, I suspect we are looking at one in four, or maybe even one in three, Americans who approach Christmas 2010 with thin wallets and heavy hearts.

To judge by their ads and aggressive online promotions, retailers apparently hope they can squeeze one more sort-of-lavish Christmas out of gift buyers.

Politicians, led by insurgent Republicans, have washed their hands of the matter and turned their attention to satisfying demands of the super-wealthy donors who financed their campaigns.

Banks seem to have resumed risky practices and are stuffing our mailboxes with credit card offers, as if they owed nothing to We the People for bailing them out.

I have three practical suggestions:

First, pay cash, and if you don’t have cash, don’t buy it. Nothing will improve by January when credit card bills roll in.

Second, sit down with your partners and older children and agree that times are lean and Christmas gift-giving can be lean, too. There is no shame in giving one gift to a loved one, rather than four.

Third, talk about it. Financial distress tends to drive us into a bubble of shame and helplessness. If ever there was a time for family and friends to be supporting each other, it is now.

Here are three practical suggestions for churches:

First, stop pretending this can be “Christmas as usual.” To judge by the several dozen church newsletters that I see, church leaders are seeing Christmas 2010 as just another year. Believe me, it isn’t. Listen to your members and the larger community.

Second, help people talk about their distress. Better this than one more sermon explaining Advent. Our enemy is isolation, not insufficient zeal for a liturgical season.

Third, tell the real story. See the inn that’s fully occupied by happy revelers and the oppressed couple forced into a stable. See a child born on the margins, an outcast from birth. See the one who was not the founder of a grand global enterprise, but a sign of God’s fundamental determination to, as an expectant Mary proclaimed, “scatter the proud,” “bring down the powerful,” “lift up the lowly,” “fill the hungry,” and “send the rich away empty.”

If we aren’t telling that story, we have nothing to say. If we aren’t hearing each other’s stories and placing them alongside the Jesus story, we have nothing to give. If we don’t sense the pain and believe in God’s power to heal, our Hallelujahs and Glorias are empty.

Let Congress take care of the rich. We have the broke, broken, confused and isolated to care for.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus” and founder of the Church Wellness Project. His website is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com. Follow Tom on Twitter (at)tomehrich.)