It's my party, and I'll daven if I want to?

I was reading this post on over-the-top parties over at On the Fringe, and I have to admit: I share Shira's point of view that parties and celebrations have gone just over the top. The concept, mentioned in the comments section of the post above, of Faux Mitzvah is an extreme case in point, but just in general I've gotten so tired of every little tiny milestone being celebrated as though it were the arrival of Mashiach.

For example, the Girl was involved in a dance recital for her performing arts school. Fantastic. Great. It was a wonderful time, and there were, I admit, some pretty talented dancers in attendance; based on the flowers, however, you'd have imagined that no one less than Misha Baryshnikov himself had come out of retirement to grace the center with a one-off celebration. Isn't it enough that the dancers had the phenomenal opportunity to dance a whole show at a top-tier venue? Why must every ballerina be feted as a diva?

In my own shul, the b'nai mitzvah celebrations have not gone crazy, B"H, but I know that the parties that follow certainly touch some lofty heights. Personally, I was fond of the bar mitzvah that occured several weeks ago: we had no more than our usual Shabbat minyan, there was no catered lunch, no handed-out programs, no long-winded speeches. It was instead exactly what I think a bar mitzvah should be: a young man is called to the Torah to lead services and to teach.

That's the long and the short of it. One becomes a bar or bat mitzvah, whether there's a party or not. The term itself is very simple, meaning "obligated to the commandment," and one becomes such at the age of 13. If you're Jewish, from that time on, you ARE a bar or bat mitzvah; mom and dad don't have to lay out wedding-type prices to make anything happen--heck, you don't even have to read from Torah. It just simply is a transition that occurs.