27 Jun How to plan a Harry Potter party in two hours

by Zannat Reza, MHSc RD

With work and related travel occupying much of my time, I literally had two hours to plan and shop for my little wizard’s Harry Potter-themed birthday party. The nice thing about 4th graders is they require little supervision and can be left to their own devices, well, for the most part.

And while you could decorate your house with all the Harry Potter paraphernalia that Amazon stocks, I went the minimalist route. With the flick of my wand, my little guy’s Harry Potter Lego sets became the decorations. Sprinkle a few electric tealights to mimic candles, and Dumbledore’s your uncle.

Food
I’ve learned over the years that kids really don’t care what you feed them at a party. The pressure to make things from scratch is entirely self-imposed. As I’m done trying to impress people, outsourcing is the name of the game.

This is where a full-service grocery store comes in handy. Drawing inspiration from the Great Hall feasts, I bought a couple of rotisserie chickens, bags of frozen peas and oven-baked fries. This was rounded out with a fruit platter, which the boys could skewer onto chopsticks (i.e. mini wands) for DIY fruit kabobs. My little man loves sushi, so that made it on the menu.

For drinks, we had Butterbeer (ginger ale with a scoop of vanilla ice cream) and unicorn blood (berry juice).

 

 

As there was a request for ice cream cake, it was Baskin Robbins to the rescue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Activities

DIY Ollivanders — We bought wooden dowels from a hardware store, which they painted black and decorated with glitter glue and ribbons. Easy peasy.

Charms class — The boys enjoyed practising spells from Alohomora to Wingardium Leviosa.

Movie — After lunch, the boys sat down to watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. They vetoed my idea to watch it in French. Oh well. But I did turn on the French subtitles (partial victory!).

And guess what I did while they watched the movie? I went for a nap! I mean, I didn’t sleep, but it was nice putting my feet up.

Each boy went home with a black booklet labelled at home, a pencil and owl sharpener. This was the best birthday party for everyone, especially for mom.