A "dinosaur" birthday party

took place across the road yesterday. We were invited. I couldn't go because I had promised to deliver a book to a friend. 
The book was important, the friendship even more so. I was willing to head out in the heat to do that. It meant I could also hand over two more books to another person and some yarn to someone else.
So, I missed the party.
The Senior Cat went for about an hour. He likes small children, probably more than I do. They fascinate him. He likes to talk to them although his hearing means it is very difficult to hear them now. He likes to watch what they do and how they do it. He's still a teacher at heart.
He came home bemused. Yes, there had been a dinosaur at the party. It was apparently a very large model. There had been a smaller dinosaur too...a smaller model. There was also a ball pond or pit or whatever you call those containers of brightly coloured balls that children seem to delight in. 
Someone had arrived and assembled the dinosaurs and the ball pond and the same person was on hand to organise a couple of games and keep the fifteen or so children entertained.  The Senior Cat said she did a very good job. He knows about these things. He used to do the occasional birthday party for younger kittens. He knows that keeping a group of excited young ones under control is not easy. 
But he came bemused all the same. "It must have been very expensive."
I agreed.
We both remember a previous neighbour. She worked part time but she was also a wife and a mother and she took those things very seriously. She still does. We still see her occasionally. 
Her birthday parties for her children were magnificent - and cheap. 
The Senior Cat provided entertainment for each of her children on one occasion each. That was certainly more than they would have had if they had been required to pay for it. As a neighbour the Senior Cat was happy to help because the father had helped him on more than one occasion.  
But, on the other occasions, the entertainment - often talked about for weeks afterward - was not expensive commercially provided entertainment. It took time and preparation - in which the birthday child was expected to be involved.  
It seems there is no time for that sort of thing now.
All but one birthday in our family falls over the long summer holiday from school. We were often away from any friends we might have because we  would be visiting family in the city. It was convenient for my mother. She did not want to have to provide birthday parties on top of having taught all week - and I am not sure other children would have wanted to come to "the teachers' house" for a party anyway. We didn't have parties. As my birthday falls on a day when other people are celebrating anyway I didn't even get cake and anything I was given tended to  be "for Christmas and birthday".  Is it any wonder I hate any sort of fuss now?
Still, even other children didn't get the sort of parties children have now. Most of them seemed to be about inviting a very small number of children to what amounted to some party games organised by the child's father and afternoon tea with tiny sausage rolls, jelly and ice cream, and the birthday cake. On the very rare occasions my siblings were invited to such events this is what they described. I imagine it was all most parents could afford and that, like most parents now, they were glad when the occasion was over.
The Senior Cat and I reminisced about this. We both came to the conclusion that the amount of money spent on a couple of hours of entertainment was not something we would want to do. Even with the professionally organised entertainment it must have been a lot of work.
I suppose it has become a matter of at least trying to "keep up with the Jones's" as they say.