In this Post: An interactive Harry Potter date Night (actually weekend) with lots of good food. We found Diagon Alley! Also my view and words of caution on the spirituality in Harry Potter.
Hello dear ones! I’m excited to bring you this post because I worked very hard on this date weekend. But I also want to make sure that I am not a stumbling block and that you understand my view on certain aspects of Harry Potter. First off, I got several of my ideas from amazing blogs and meshed them together. I will be sharing the links but if you want to find them all together go here:
http://www.pinterest.com/doverette/harry-potter-party/
Okay, only part of this picture is going to show up on my page but I wanted a big picture to see in the reader and to use for Pinterest. Just click on it to see the big picture. I’ll be showing these pics individually too. After my view on Harry Potter I will show you how I brought this together and our schedule for the weekend. I have so much to show you! So come along and don’t get lost ;).
- My view on Harry Potter spirituality as briefly as possible: Harry Potter is a work of fiction and a majority of the “magic” in the movies (I’m still working on the books) is pure fantasy. BUT and it’s a big but (lol) Harry Potter does contain some real witchcraft and occultic practices. My Dad dabbled in the occult before he became a minister. After he was a minister and HP came out he forbid me to watch the movies. I’m glad too because I was very spiritually immature and I was drawn to the occult. Thankfully God kept me from things. But I was the kid who probably would’ve googled runes and spells . I had a dangerous curiosity. As a spiritually mature adult (at least more mature than then), I can enjoy the HP movies about an orphan boy who challenges a Nazi like dictator. I can also enjoy the fun of quidditch, flying broomsticks, and private school life. Those outfits are adorable :).
Me with the sorting hat on and sporting my Gryffindor shirt and scarf. I’m holding a book of poetry for my school book.
- So what’s the danger in Harry Potter? What’s real “magic”? Tea leaf reading and fortune telling of any kind opens up the demonic and is evil. Runes were made specifically for the occult and open up the demonic (which makes me sad for my beloved Lord of the Rings. I didn’t know that about runes til recently). They were made for pagan worship and occult practices. Talking to the dead aka familiar spirits is forbidden in scripture because “ghosts” (familiar spirits) are actually demons. The Bible is clear that there is no in between Heaven and Hell, when you die.
The Scarecrow as Harry Potter
- I believe the spells in Harry Potter are just Latin words but I’m not sure. But it is possible that HP could be the gateway drug so to speak that pushes someone to look into real chants and spells. And I’ve heard of people that did take that plunge. It is rare I hope but still I say proceed with caution…especially when it comes to spiritually immature kids. Potions seem innocent and kind of silly. In Harry Potter they are but drugs and the occult go hand in hand. It’s dangerous to experiment with drinking strange mixtures. This isn’t in Harry Potter but in reference to other films that glorify the occult: drinking blood is gross and evil. It opens up the soul to demons. Now, I would hope that all my readers understand that but I just had to say it. Lastly, alchemy is occultic. The “wizard” that found the Philosopher’s stone was an actual real life alchemist and the philosopher’s stone is a real occultic legend.
Michael enjoying his chocolate frog and every flavor beans. He was there for part of the date.
- So I say all this to say, proceed with caution. I let my son see a few of the first movies but it was after a long chat about the real life dangers of the occult. You can find occultic practices peppered through most of the media. So this is an ongoing chat I’ll be having with my son. Even if I forbid any movie with the occult (Fairy tales included if you want to get technical), I would still want to talk to Michael about the reality of the occult and to beware. I think it’s dangerous to plunge into the media world without guidance and precautions.
- Another thing, and this goes for Super Man and any hero character in the movies (Harry Potter etc..), it’s important to know why we root for these characters. Also it’s good to remember that there is only one savior and that’s Jesus. I try to stress to Michael that he should never idolize these characters or try to model his life after them.
Okay, now to the Date!
- The Set~I got my inspiration for the Great Hall from this site:
http://www.chicaandjo.com/2013/07/17/harry-potter-party/
I didn’t have LED candles so I tried real candles and it was beautiful. But I could only light them before we sat down because of the dripping wax. I didn’t think of that :(. Thankfully I had a plastic cloth over the couch. I hung the candles with black thread and push pins. It was a dangerous endeavor where I frequently got bonked on the head!
The candles are supposed to appear to be floating. Mine do not but still I felt like the Great Hall was in our living room :). Blue and red plastic cloths from the dollar store and owl candle holders from Michael’s craft store really brought this together. I sprinkled star confetti everywhere for that “magical” (the fake kind) feel. I labeled each area. I printed out the house symbols and pasted them on construction paper for the coat of arms. Then I hung them along the back. The wall is made of black paper and grey paint for stones. I got the Gryffindor tie idea from:
http://www.joyababy.com/blog/?p=851
Potions class and Ollivander’s Wand shop were over by the piano, along with some Nimbus 2013 brooms.
I didn’t want to have any real wands or to pretend to do potions. So I bought these key chain wands that have a light. The potion bottles are goofy Halloween decor from the Dollar Tree. I bought my two owls online.
The brooms were in the Halloween section of Target. I used a Sharpee to write “Nimbus 2013” on them.
Under the TV, I put up a brick backdrop (from the craft store) and red plastic cloth. Then I decorated it with various Harry Potter items.
I’ve got the Quibbler and “spectrespecs” (Luna’s glasses). I found Quibbler pages online and the goofy glasses were at the Dollar Tree.
I bought the scarf online. It has either the Gryffindor crest or Hogwarts crest on it. I got the Harry Potter Lego games on sale. I simply put one of my owls in a decorative bird cage I already had. You can find the cages at craft stores. I sprinkled star confetti everywhere. You can see my chocolate frog boxes.
The sorting hat is a witch’s hat that I found in Target and I used a silver Sharpee to draw his face.
I’ve learned that you don’t always have to clean up to have a party. Just throw a cloth over it and voila! LOL 🙂
You can’t forget the Ministry of Magic. Harry Potter fans, you know one of the ways that you magically get there. Yep, that’s the toilet. I found the sign online. A bit of Harry Potter humor for ya!
Now, how do we get to Hogwarts? Well, we take the train by platform 9 3/4 which is a magical brick wall. So I covered our front door with the brick paper.
I got several of my labels (including food boxes you’ll see later) at:
http://blueberrygirlinoz.blogspot.co.il/2012/08/harry-potter-party.html?m=1
A prop that came later…the Marauder’s Map. Harry Potter uses this map to see where people are in the castle. I stained my map with tea. I found the map and idea here: http://harrypotterparaphernalia.blogspot.com/2012/07/marauders-map-inside-and-outside.html
Of course, you have to have all 8 dvds (Year 7 is split into two parts) to have a Harry Potter movie marathon. But I didn’t want us to just sit on our bottoms for two days. So I found these owl printables here:
http://offbeatbride.com/2012/02/owl-save-the-dates
and I wrote down a schedule that would go with each movie. The first owl for years 1-4 and the second one for years 5-7. Owls deliver mail in the movies.
More on our schedule later…
I made Chris a howler invitation. A howler is a letter that speaks for itself. I couldn’t find any simple instructions online so I just shaped the paper the best I could. See the lips, teeth, and tongue?
To be silly, I talked for it as well. I used my best Dolores Umbridge impression.
- Food! Oh this was my favorite part. I wanted to create a big feast for the Great Hall and I wanted to make some of the candy that’s sold at Hogwarts.
Chocolate frogs are a must and super easy. I bought a frog mold online. Then I printed out the boxes and colored them. Remember I posted the label link above?
I added caramel. These were a hit! They don’t hop away either :).
Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans~ these were the easiest to make because I didn’t make them :). I bought Jelly Bellies and put them in a different box. I got the box and label at the same link as the frog boxes.
Magic Wands~ I saw these on other blogs. You just dip big pretzel sticks in white chocolate.
Butterbeer is a famous non-alocholic drink served at The Three Broomsticks. It’s super sweet. The guys liked it better than me.
It only took 3 ingredients and you can find the recipe here:
http://heatherbailey.typepad.com/heather_bailey/2009/07/butterbeer_recipe.html
I found the small broomsticks in the craft section. I frosted our glasses in the freezer.
I made these delicious cornish hens in the slow cooker. They just screamed “feast”!
I got the recipe here: http://www.slowcookeradventures.com/2010/12/butter-and-sage-cornish-hens.html
I mixed up a large bowl of Alfredo pasta and I added shrimp cooked with this recipe (minus the other pasta):
http://sweetandsavoryshenanigans.blogspot.com/2013/09/shrimp-scampi.html
Both of the recipes required white cooking wine. A bowl of green beans balanced it out. I could eat the shrimp all day. We ate on this the next week. It was a lot of food!
The next morning we had a breakfast for champions. It included grits and Apple Pie French Toast.
http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Apple-Pie-Sandwiches
The schedule for the neatest Harry Potter date ever! At least in my opinion ;).
- Visit Diagon Alley to pick up school books. In HP, Diagon Alley is where you get all you need for wizard school. Chris and I visited downtown to see if we could find “Diagon Alley”. I was super excited to find two shops that really had an old feel to them. It was indeed magical (in the good way). PS: Chris and I are wearing Gryffindor t-shirts that I found online.
I already did a whole post on the antique and jewelry store. That was quite a find all by itself. The jewelry is very unique.
https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2013/09/28/broadway-jewelry-review/
The most Harry Potter-ish find was the book store. And it was another God surprise (often God does little things to surprise me. Some call these God-winks). Low and behold! What was in this old book store? A suit or armor with a Harry Potter scarf on him! My, was I ecstatic at the find!
The whole store had a quirky charm. Books were spilling out everywhere!
Here’s an old creepy photo from Civil War times. It’s signed too.
I found this great Harvard Poetry book from around the 1930’s or earlier. Doesn’t it just look Harry Potter-ish?!
- Then we went to the Great Hall for a feast and the first Harry Potter movie: The Philosopher’s Stone.
- We also got sorted into our houses. I already showed you my sorting picture. Here’s Michael and Chris’. The sorting hat puts people into their teams/houses.
- We watched the 2nd movie: The Chamber of Secrets and then wrote each other love notes (really poems from my poetry book) in invisible ink. We didn’t have any luck with lemon juice or crayon resist methods. They were barely legible. In the end, we just read our poems to each other. It was a brilliant idea anyways.
I also found something interesting in my poetry book, a poem about Trelawny. What another neat find! There is a professor Trelawny in Harry Potter! Remember I had just bought this book…so completely unplanned!
- We watched # 3: The Prisoner of Azkaban and then played Lego Harry Potter years 1-4 on PS3. We also posed for pictures in the Daily Prophet (HP newspaper). We did our most insane Sirius Black impressions.
- We were too tired to watch #4 so we saved it for the next morning. We watched #4 The Goblet of Fire and had our Breakfast feast for Champions. The Goblet of Fire is about the Triwizard Tournament. So it fit. I already showed you the apple pie french toast and grits.
- We then had a quidditch match. We used broom sticks to hit the ball into the hoop. The snitch was the prize for the winner. I taped feathers to a golden wrapper candy to make it.
I cheated and flew up there ;). Yes, it was very hard to get that ball through the hoop. So hard that we never did.
Our game was cut short by the evil Nagini! Nagini is the horrible snake in Harry Potter. Ours was simply a rat snake but he died anyways. We thought he was a rattler at first. It was super freaky to see him hiss after his head was cut off. Go Chris for defeating Nagini!
- #5 The Order of the Phoenix ~ we trained for Dumbledore’s army by playing Lego Harry Potter years 5-7.
- #6 The Half Blood Prince~ We read The Quibbler and I had a photo shoot as Luna Lovegood :). She’s one of my favorite characters. The kitty joined me. Chester reminds me of Professor Mcgonagall.
Inside The Quibbler
- Lastly, we had a lovely dinner of left overs and watched # 7 part one and two. Then we used a drawing tutorial to draw Dobby, the house elf. He’s my other favorite. I cried when he died :(.
Mine is on the left and Chris’ is on the right. He deviated from the tutorial. So I wanted to try again.
Here’s my best Dobby picture.
We actually both fell asleep during the last movie. The marathon was just too long. But we had a very fun date weekend. It was full of many surprises…some good…some creepy. I hope you had fun with us.
God bless & remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover
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