We threw Troy an epic birthday party today. It’s been four weeks in the planning and the making, but it was all worth it. He wanted a Harry Potter-themes birthday, which I found a lot of people had done, so there was plenty of ideas on Pinterest. But I might have gotten a little ambitious, because I wanted to do it all!
My mom has come up several times to help bring my vision to life. My wife and Troy have been tasked with several items as well. And I’ve spent every free moment on weekdays and weekends working on decorations and games. And it finally all came together today.
For a change, we actually had a pretty good turnout of girls and boys, and a mix of people in his current class and former classmates. The only issue I had was some people waited very late to RSVP, some backed out on the day, and some RSVPed and never showed up. It was very hard to plan games that involved teams (the four Hogwarts houses) with a constant ebb and flow of people. Not to mention those that came but then left early. In the end, we didn’t have enough people to play the games, so we had to recruit some less-than-enthusiastic adults to participate, who honestly were looking forward to socializing while we babysat their kids.
My mom and I DIYed most of the decorations, and we pulled in things from all of the books and movies. We had luggage by the front door complete with trunks, suitcases, and brooms. We had the Hogwarts banners, representing all of the houses lining the stairs. We had Cornish pixies in jars backlit by flickering candles. We had the flying keys and the floating candles. We had Hogwarts acceptance letters flying out of the fireplace. We had Aragog’s spiders marching into the Forbidden Forest. We had an owlery. Port key passageways to the Ministry of Magic via the downstairs toilet. We had Myrtle in a bubble bath. We even had a floor to ceiling Whomping Willow! In fact, we had so much stuff that some of it didn’t even make it out, such as the Marauder Map footprints.
For the food, I found a lot of great ideas on how to turn ordinary food into Harry Potter-themed dishes simply with a little imagination and a sign. Bugles become Raven Claws, cheese puffs become Huffle Puffs, mini marshmallows become unicorn poop, green gummy worms become Gillyweed, gold chocolate eggs become dragon eggs, Hershey kisses become Dementors’ kisses, Pocky sticks become mini wands, Ferraro chocolates become Golden Snitches, and gold chocolate coins become Gringotts goblin gold.
But the pièce de résistance was the mandrakes in a blanket! Like a pig in a blanket with sausages and crescent rolls, but made to look like little mandrakes with sprigs of spinach coming out of their heads for leaves. Which my mom and Troy pulled off to perfection.
To start the party all of the kids had to be sorted into a house. We had found a cool idea where you put an ice cream cone on the top of a cookie to look like a mini sorting hat. And inside the ice cream cone were red, blue, yellow, or green M&Ms to represent the different Hogwarts houses. The kids randomly pick a cone, open it, and their house is revealed. We then tied a ribbon with the same color around their wrist, so they’d remember their selection.
After the sorting, we herded the kids upstairs where we had a photo op booth set up. Everyone got a picture and then the games began. The games were organized into series of challenges where the kids would compete on teams to win points for their house, similar to The Hogwarts House Cup.
The first game was called House Sorting. Each team had a bowl of red, blue, yellow, and green M&Ms all mixed together. They were tasked with sorting each color into a separate bowl. The first team to finish was awarded four points, the second three, etc. I was concerned that the kids might take a while on this game, mainly because I feel the difficulty increases with more people trying to grab the same M&Ms from a bowl. But I was pleasantly surprised to see them complete it fairly quickly and to see them work together, taking turns to grab M&Ms from the bowl to sort.
The second game was called Free Dobby Sock Toss. As people familiar with Harry Potter know, a house elf who is enslaved to a master can only be freed by receiving an article of clothing. Dobby gets freed from the Malfoy family when Harry Potter tricks Lucious Malfoy into giving Dobby a sock. So, we made a board with a hole in it, where the kids would take turns tossing socks of their house colors through the hole. Dobby was looking on hopefully from a whiteboard nearby. We originally had this set up for each kid to toss three socks, but we ended up giving them extra turns when drama ensued. Some of the kids were brought to tears when their sock repeatedly missed the mark.
The third game was called Quidditch Pong. Quidditch is of course the sport of choice in the wizard world. It’s a game where two teams square off to get a ball through one of three hoops. It’s traditionally played on broom sticks, but we felt that might be a bit tough in our small game room. So, we set up three hoops on a table and had the kids attempt to throw ping pong balls of their house colors through the hoops and into some red Solo cups. Not every ball actually went through the hoops before landing in the cups, but we counted it anyway. And lots of the balls hit the hoops and bounced off. Some of the kids who were crying at the sock toss game found success at the Quidditch game, so there was that. The only downside is that the kids who were not playing went into unmanaged chaos, running around and wrestling, and it was hard to get them reengaged again.
The fourth game was called The Book Puzzle. I had made copies of the cover of the first Harry Potter book, The Sorcerer’s Stone, and I cut them into puzzles. The kids were tasked with putting the jumbled pieces back together again to resemble the book cover once again. Amazingly, they did a really good job on this game too. Some of the teams had adults helping out, but those teams actually did worse than the all kids teams!
The fifth and final game was called the Horcrux Treasure Hunt. You-Know-Who is back, and evil has once again entered the world! Professor Dumbledore has asked the teams to help get rid of the evil wizard Voldemort once and for all. But to do that, they had to first find all of his Horcruxes.
We hid seven items all over the house, and the kids had to work together as a team to find them. Each of the teams was given a list of the items, which had their names and a picture of what they looked like. They were also given a clue that told them where to find the first item and the person who had it. Attached to each item was another clue that led them to the next item until they’d eventually found all seven. The teams would then race back to the starting point to turn in their lists.
The kids had the most fun with this game by far. To find the items, they had to decode the clues and try to remember where they’d seen the things described, such as the pixies in the jars or Myrtle in the bathtub. Each team was given a different clue to start, so teams weren’t piggybacking off each other. It also meant that teams were running chaotically all over the house at the same time!
Overall, the party was a huge success. The only downside was that most of the guests had never seen or read Harry Potter, so they were unfamiliar with most of the references. I think they would have enjoyed it more if they had known the story. Without the context, things just looked like random decorations.
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