Birthday Celebrations: where's the line

[Jeunemaitre]

....
The way your birthday is celebrated,is a clue to know how/how much the people who celebrate it,love you.Really,I don't understand why there should be a 'too much' for celebrating a birthday.
All in all,it is always better than 'too little' or nobody there to celebrate it.

I would think that having someone recognize your feelings and celebrate with you in a way you find to be appropriate would demonstrate their love for you more than a lavish celebration, unless that's what you wanted.

My reason for not wanting "too much" is a sense that it's just another day to everyone but my immediate family, as well as being a completely arbitrary reason to celebrate. If I wanted to I could go about proclaiming that today was the 9496th day-versary of my birthday if I wanted to, but what's the point? It really only functions as a record keeping measure for the individual. My wife has argued that it should be a time to celebrate the good fortune that one has experienced since the last birthday, but I've always favored a standardized fiscal year, prefering to look back over the calandar year, rather than birthday to birthday. But maybe that's just an artifact of when my birthday falls.

All of this aside, the genesis for this feeling of "too much" is an aversion to being the center of attention, especially of large groups.