Must be nice

Never knew how to respond to folks that said, "must be nice" when you mentioned an upcoming vacation or such. Not a fan of braggarts myself so careful not to be one, thus, the "must be nice" thing takes me by surprise. Awkward in the beginning, now I just answer, "Yes, it is."
I am truly happy when my friends receive good news or cool rewards and I don't consider myself to be a jealous person but if I truly am envious, I own up to it. "I covet your brand new Super 2000 embroidery machine with 976 stitch options" but never would I say "must be nice".
And you shouldn't either. It makes you seem small.
Nor should you talk about the price of items. It is crass. LocalRichBitch stopped by her/my hair salon to show the gay hairstylist her chosen wallpaper for her new McMansion. Nevermind that she interrupted him doing MY hair. The paper was garish by my standards but he told her it was nice. Loudly she exclaimed, "Nice? Of course, it is nice. It should be nice at $400 a roll."
Oh my gosh, I almost fell out of chair. That behavior is so gross and reveals so much about her. Not good things.
Cut to my Book Boyfriend Tyler Cowen. He writes about "signals"in his book "Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist". We signal every time we incur a cost to send a message about ourselves to the outside world. Signaling is a kind of personal advertising. An example of counter-signaling is when the very rich dress like bums.
My Book Boyfriend goes on to say that reporting good news can make a person look bad. If we look anxious to reveal good news, our listeners assume that we don't often have good news. Tyler asks if Bill Gates goes home at night to tell his wife he earned a lot of money that day? Did Michael Jordan need to tell his friends every time he scored 30 points in a game? Sooner or later the good news will come out and even better if it is carried by a third party.

Hope all your news is good and your enemies hear it from someone else.