One Christmas morning, 10-year-old Tori Spelling woke up in her family's Los Angeles mansion eager to see what Santa brought. But little did she know that her biggest surprise wasn't under the tree – it was outside on the tennis court.

There, on December 25 in sunny California, was snow. Not just a little flake or two but enough to create a hill for sledding.

The snow was neither an oddity caused by La Nina nor an arrangement worked out between Heat Miser and Snow Miser as in The Year Without a Santa Claus. A production this big required a mega-producer.

Enter Aaron Spelling (Tori's dad) and a crew with a snow machine.

So preposterous. (Why not just fly the kid to Buffalo?) So wasteful. (Think of the carbon footprint left by a devise cranking out snow on an 85-degree day.) So dang cool (literally and figuratively).

Face it: What California kid wouldn't love to discover snow in her very own backyard on Christmas morning? Holidays are known as times of wonder. If you had the resources, wouldn't it be awesome to create such jaw-dropping magic?

Not that us "ordinary" folks don't go the extra mile for our kids. How many parents camp outside Best Buy or Wal-Mart in the cold, wee hours of the morning for a shot at finding the newest Xbox release or an Elmo Live doll? Something about making the nearly impossible possible really does make a parent feel like Santa (which is why I spent more than one lunch hour last year scouring eBay in search of a deal on a rare "Pirates of the Caribbean" figure for my 8-year-old -- it might not rank up there with California snow, but the toy did make a borderline believer in Santa hold onto his faith for at least another year).

Of course there are also other reasons why parents go to great lengths for Christmas, birthdays and other holidays. Could Britney Spears have been trying to make up for some parenting mistakes when she got her two sons custom-made mini-motorized cars with personalized license plates to drive around at their vehicle-themed birthday party? Likewise, is a stack of presents under the tree a way for middle-class parents to justify missing too many Little League games or family dinners?

For celebrity parents, the issue of attention from the press probably guides many of their actions. Sure, Tom and Katie could have picked flowers from the garden, brought in some McDonald's, and blew bubbles in the backyard to celebrate Suri's second birthday -- but who in the world would want to read about that? Filling the house with $17,000 worth of flowers, having Wolfgang Puck cater the event, and releasing a thousand butterflies as the birthday girl blows out her candles makes for a much better story.

Likewise, Samantha -- the daughter of the divorced Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen -- might not have minded simply celebrating her fourth birthday at Chuck E. Cheese, but that doesn't make for good television. Instead, the little girl's house was turned into "Sammi's Spa" -- including tiny monogrammed bathrobes waiting for each guest to wear as they got their nails painted and their hair done – while cameras captured the experience for Denise's reality TV show.

While most parents do not have magazine clippings describing their child's birthday or a production crew filming the event for cable, we do have scrapbooks and camcorders. I recently heard a comedian remark that in this age of technology he cannot understand why parents don't just put together their child's first birthday party using PhotoShop. The kid isn't going to remember the event, and the parents could still have the "proof" that they fulfilled their duty.

The comic would have a case if lavish events were solely about the child, but they aren't. People have neighbors, friends and family that they want to impress. Suri Cruise couldn't read the calligraphy on the personalized individual cakes each guest received at her party, but Katie's mother-in-law could. Likewise, what non-Hollywood mom doesn't enjoy guests gushing that they can't believe she made that double-layered chocolate cake with impeccable roses on top from scratch?

Lest I risk giving the impression that all parents from Beverly Hills to Any Town, U.S.A. are just using their kids to get attention, let's get back to the bottom line. Children are only small for a limited time. To be able to make occasions such as birthdays and Christmas memorable for them and those who love them is part of the fun of being a parent.

For Geri Halliwell, this means holding daughter Bluebell's Alice-in-Wonderland-themed party in a 16th-century mansion complete with lop-eared bunnies, enormous stuffed toys, and white-horse chess pieces. For a non-Spice Girl, it might mean creating a tea party in the backyard and inviting your daughter's friends to wear their best dresses and crowns constructed from cardboard and glitter. Odds are both birthday girls come out feeling like royalty.

Disclaimer: Whether the presents you painstakingly chose came from Rodeo Drive or the mall on Main Street, chances are your kid will have the most fun playing with the box.