My birthday is only in November and it has been affected by the fact that people are already budgeting for their holiday shopping. When I was younger I never got the big parties and my family didn't shop all that much for me. My mom did great, it was just hard to get the rest of the family together.
Anyway, I have thought about this because I now have a son with his birthday Dec. 10 (and the other one is July 29). I want to be sure to keep things even. One thing I have thought of is to theme my Dec. son's birthdays so that they stick out from the rest of the holidays. I have thought I might have summer themed parties. I already hate it when people give him presents wrapped in Christmas paper.
My Dec. son in only three, so we haven't had many parties. One thing we tend to do is have two parties if his birthday doesn't fall when the whole family can get together. We have one at home ON his birthday and another when the family can get together. We had to do this for his first birthday. We did cake and such with my mom on his birthday, and then we had to have his birthday be part of my mother-in-law's Hanuka dinner. My feeling were kind of hurt because everyone was too busy to get together at the other times we suggested, but what can you do.
Be prepared for family to be too busy to get together. What I do now is just plan a party and that is that. I can't please everyone.