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Wednesday, April 3, 2002 Birthday Blowout: Celebrations getting more extravagantBy ANNE GEGGIS | News-Journal Staff Writer DAYTONA BEACH — Adding a petting zoo to the Wild West scene of her son's third birthday party caused a little more excitement than Kathy Giordano had anticipated. "All of a sudden, I heard this blood-curdling shriek -- one of the baby goats was trying to eat a little girl's dress," Giordano says. "It was a real Kodak moment." Before it was all over, there was more mayhem among the bales of hay Giordano had set up outside and in the living room she had decorated to look like an old-time saloon. A miniature pig had to be chased down. The bunnies got loose and started snacking on selections from her garden. But none of that would convince Giordano to have a party with anything less than 100 people to celebrate the birthdays of her sons, Christian, 6, and Nicholas, 3. An outer space-themed party with a robot and plastic foam made to look like asteroids and a safari party are some of the subsequent events she's arranged for their birthdays. "With the medical problems we went through with the children, it's become very important to share special moments," she said, explaining that both her sons have had serious heart problems. Giordano, who turned her passion for parties into an Ormond Beach business, is part of a growing army of service providers who specialize in making children's parties much more than cake, ice cream and a game of pin the tail on the donkey. Mechanized jungle animals are available to take youngsters on rides. A backyard can be turned into a mini-speedway complete with kid-sized racing cars, or a small-scale carnival with an inflatable moonwalk, cotton candy and beanbag throwing games. For girls slightly older than the moonwalk age, glamour parties are all the rage. Jim Crock had a Halloween party for his 10-year-old daughter -- her third affair -- that converted the clubhouse at their subdivision into a haunted house. The frights were made all the more vivid with teen-ag ers dressed as monsters, such as Count Dracula and a man with the skin of his face ripped off. "We never had stuff like that," says Crock, a local attorney who grew up in a working-class family in Pittsburgh. "If I can do more for my child that's great." Working parents spawned the trend and continue to drive it, according to Maggie Nel, owner of a Port Orange toy party company. In providing inflatable obstacle courses, climbing walls and other carnival-like attractions, her company was, until recently, one of only two here. Now there's a handful, she says. "One woman once said to me, `We never had this when we were young -- it's some thing that we can give them that we never had,'" Nel says. Ordering up their parties, Nel says parents tell her, "Maggie, I want to see those kids smile, and I want them to talk about it forever." Such extravagances for children as young as one year points out a troubling issue for some, however. Thomas H. Naylor, one of three authors of "Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic" (Berrett-Koehler, 2001), says that these kinds of birthday parties point out a disease of the spirit that's rampant in this country. "We're always looking for the next high -- enough is never enough," says Naylor, a Duke University economics professor emeritus whose book critiques how "the urge to splurge continues to surge" in American society. "This is part of the denial of death -- that's really what it's all about." The main issue at hand one Saturday morning in Port Orange is whether Melissa James' fifth birthday party is going to be rained out yet again. Before the party is in full swing, under threatening skies, some of her 20 or so guests have already started bouncing inside the inflatable moonwalk set up on the family's front lawn. Over near the garage, carnival games have been set up, awaiting young players. But Melissa only has eyes for "Sugar," a pony that's been brought in for her birthday. "She loves horses," says her mother, Michelle James, 33, providing an explanation for why Melissa's cake is a pasture scene decorated with horses. "She's a horse fanatic." After all the jumping and the carnival games, the other guests turn their attention to the pony waiting in the trailer. "Can I be the first to ride it?" asks Joshua James, 7, one of Melissa's three brothers. A.J. Payne, who is in charge of the Deltona-based ponies for this party, tells him firmly that the birthday girl is going first, setting off some jockeying for next in line. Melissa's aunt, Stephanie Pavlakovic, looks at Melissa's father and jokingly asks: "Do you realize what you've started here? Every year you're going to have to outdo this." Ken James turns serious at the suggestion. "You can only do so much," he says. "The more they get, the more they want." |
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