Birthday Party Madness

I'm currently trying to plan SB's second birthday party.  We just put together a guest list, and we figured out that we need to invite a minimum of 53 people, so as not to offend any of our friends.  These are all people that we regularly socialize with, who have kids SB's age.  They all routinely invite us to their kids parties, their houses for dinner, out, to the park, etc., etc.  Argh.

For her first birthday, we threw a small party at a museum.  We played, we had lunch, my mom came,  there was cake, and it was fun and reasonably priced.  It was a small group of our closest friends, and it was perfect.  I am struggling to find something reasonable to do with 53 people.  Of course they won't all come; all of them travel quite a bit for work and/or fun, and people always have other obligations.  But still. . .huge group.

Our apartment is spacious, but not so spacious that I can host 23 children under the age of five. Nor do I really want to.  We could just do a family party, but my mother in law and her husband will be here for the birthday, and that just sounds boring. . .no other kids.  My office has some outdoor space that I could use, but that really means that we could only invite friends from work, because it's too complicated to get non-work friends through the layers of security that invariably exist in offices here.  I looked at other options, but with a group that large, we are talking a minimum of $500, and. . .no.  I just won't.  She's two years old.  TWO!!!

But that's what everyone here does.  They spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on these big, crazy birthday parties.  There are a million options, and they aren't really that expensive, if you only invite, say 10 kids.  But invite 23 kids and 30 adults (i.e., the parents of said children), and suddenly. . .wowza.

Oh, and because I am so behind, her birthday is next weekend, so I really need to get it planned.  Luckily, people here think it is totally normal to do invites immediately before the birthday.  Only my American friends will think my lack of planning is bad.   Now if only I could decide on what to do.