Extavagent Birthday Parties?

Here's a link to a CNN.com article about the rising trend of parent's throwing over-the-top [expensive] birthday parties for their young children. We're talking thousand-dollar custom cakes, goody bags with more than most kids receive for Christmas, and the whatnot (use your imagination).

From what I've read previously, it seems to me that these extravagant parties are rooted in the desire in so many American adults to 'one-up' everyone else. Parents want to throw their own child a crazy-expensive party to be more over-the-top than the last kid's party.

Oddly enough, there has a been a study or two done that shows many American adults base their perception of their own happiness on how their house/belongings/income/parties compare to those of their peers. In my opinion, a rather unsettling idea and probably much of the reason most Americans today overextend themselves and end up swimming in credit card debt.

I digress.

I recall one of my later childhood birthday parties (by later I mean at the age when playing with GI Joe was still appropriate), I gathered a handful of friends in my basement and had a quite extensive, all-out GI Joe war for hours on end, long into the night. I hope that one day my child(ren) will celebrate their birthdays in a similar fashion.