Excess (Part 6 of 7) - Parties

I DVR'd the Royal Wedding this morning for my little princesses to watch when they get home from school. OK, truth, I really want to watch it myself. I was 8 when Diana and Charles married in 1981 and for years I was obsessed with her and her sheer princessness. In 1986, Prince Andrew married Sarah (Fergie) on my birthday. I got up at the crack of dawn to watch the proceedings. Not quite as grand as Charles and Diana's, it was nonetheless, a royal wedding. Now a new generation is watching this and sighing a little sigh. Isn't Kate beautiful? Isn't it romantic? They are royalty after all, so one would expect a wedding or any other party to be on a grand scale. But what about the rest of us. I'm speaking of excesses with parties and gift giving for our children. I have known of little 2 year old's birthday parties where there were ponies, bouncy houses, and "goody bags" that were on par with the rich and famous. Kids are getting TVs, cell phones, gaming systems, and all sorts of other high ticket items as gifts at younger and younger ages. My question is where do you go from there? Next year the child expects that and more. What ever happened to inviting a couple of neighborhood friends over for some cake and ice cream and maybe pin the tail on the donkey?

And the weddings! I'm living in mortal fear of having the twins decide to get married too close together. As twins, I'm secretly hoping for a double wedding to defray some of the cost. Forget college, we're saving for weddings. They have become in our society bigger, better, and "I can top you" weddings. Wedding dresses in excess of $10,000, cakes that are more than our annual salary (and that's just the groom's cake), gifts for the guests to take home that are nicer than anything my husband and I got at our own wedding. Where does it end? Again, what happened to standing before a minister saying "I do" and meaning it? It's time for simpler living. Let's leave the excess to the people who know how to do excess best. I want a simpler life where keeping up with the new Jones means we have a new game to play at a kid's party, and not the game of "Who Can Top This". Anybody with me?