Christmas at Hogwarts – Have a Magical Christmas With Harry Potter

Harry Potter also lends a special magic to Christmas, not only fans agree. Because it is the festival of love, family and friendship, all those values that are also celebrated in the book series. Get on the digital track 9 ³⁄₄ here, take the verbal Hogwarts Express and celebrate Christmas at Hogwarts!

When Harry Potter experiences Christmas at Hogwarts in his first year at school, he can hardly believe how different, how splendid and beautiful this is celebrated there – it is the most beautiful Christmas for him to date!

Well, the comparison to all the previous Christmases Harry can remember is also one between night and day. Before, he always had to celebrate the feast of love with the Dursleys, who gave their pampered son Dudley one bombastic gift package after another, while they pestered the unloved nephew Harry with nasty presents like a box full of dog biscuits.

But you don’t have to use the Dursleys’ bullying as a foil to get excited about the way Christmas is celebrated at Hogwarts. Like other festivals and occasions, such as Halloween, Christmas at Hogwarts is a spectacle of magic!

And you can bring at least a little bit of this magic home, we have looked deep into Sybil Trelawny’s crystal ball and seen some tips for you in it…

So, like Professor Flitwick on the cover (© Warner Bros.), let’s raise the baton / wand and summon the spirit of Christmas!

But first, what makes Christmas at Hogwarts so special?

Why Christmas at Hogwarts Is the Best

In the fourth book, Hogwarts receives guests from two other wizarding schools, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, on the occasion of the Triwizard Tournament. For the Christmas Ball, the hosts go to great lengths to impress their guests, transforming the Great Hall of Hogwarts into a ballroom glittering with icicles:

There’s always snow at Hogwarts at Christmas! In all the descriptions of Christmas in the books, the magnificent castle is wrapped in a white cloak. And should the white Christmas be a long time coming, there are always enough experienced witches and wizards there who can help it along with a little weather magic.

But Hogwarts doesn’t just offer a highly Christmassy view from the outside. Huge Christmas trees are set up in the Great Hall, so big that it takes a half-giant like Hagrid to carry them and even he almost collapses under them. These are then magically decorated and adorned with equally huge, wondrously glowing Christmas tree baubles and Christmas garlands. This is a task in which Professor Flitwick excels year after year with his special talent and great zeal. The fact that the Christmas trees are then surrounded by real fairies is the magical icing on the cake. The school’s great hall is therefore the ideal place for a big Christmas party and thus also a bombastic Christmas binge.
And the food is just fantastically good, if you believe the descriptions in the books. As it says in the first volume, at Christmas at Hogwarts there are, among other things, “hundreds of fat roast turkeys, mountains of roast and boiled potatoes, platters of fat chipolatas, tureens of buttered peas, silver boats of thick, rich gravy and cranberry sauce…” (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling). Well, is your mouth watering already?

Oh, and don’t forget: when singing Christmas carols at Hogwarts, you are accompanied by such powerful, sonorous voices as those of Albus Dumbledore and Rubeus Hagrid, one dignified and grandfatherly gentle at the same time, the other eggnog-laden and hearty.

As a Potter fan, you’re almost tempted to sing Christmas carols out loud yourself at the mere thought of it!)

How to Celebrate Christmas at Hogwarts in Your Own Home

Looking into the mirror ERISED, we Potter fans probably all see – ourselves in the robes of our favourite Hogwarts house, a wand in hand and an owl or other witch pet perched on our shoulder. But if we look in a conventional mirror in our bathroom or hallway, what do we see? Muggles.

Yes, it would be so nice to be able to do magic, but not everyone is allowed to become a student at Hogwarts. But that doesn’t mean that we have to miss out on the joys of Christmas at Hogwarts! Even Muggles know how to help themselves.

To spend Christmas with Harry Potter and co. and bring the winter magic of Hogwarts into your own home, all you have to do is brew an atmospheric potion that even Muggles can make.

You need 3 ingredients: Potterish decorations, Potterish presents and a Potterish Christmas programme!

“Apparet Decorum Nativitatis!” – How to Turn Your Living Room Into the Hall of Hogwarts

The most important ingredient you need to transform your living space into a Christmas-decorated wizarding school is imagination! Although you probably won’t be able to recreate the Christmas decorations of the Great Hall as shown in the above picture from the first Harry Potter film due to space constraints.

You probably decorate your home for Christmas anyway and have also put up a Christmas tree. To create a Hogwarts and Harry Potter atmosphere, simply add a few typical Hogwarts decorations to your Christmas decorations. For example, the 4 flags of the houses Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. Or just your favourite house.

Mix in typical Christmas decorations such as stars, Christmas candles, angels, nutcrackers, incense burners and fir branches, as well as some typical magic paraphernalia from the Harry Potter books. For example, wands, witches’ cauldrons, colourful potions in small glass bottles or a flying broom leaning in the corner.
Although it will probably be a bit difficult to get real fairies constantly buzzing around your Christmas tree, you can hang some Christmas tree decorations from the Potterverse on them. There are actually Christmas tree balls with the coats of arms of the 4 houses, Harry Potter Christmas stockings, the owl Hedwig, the Talking Hat or even small figures of Harry, Ron and Hermione to hang on the Christmas tree:

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Another tip for preparing and getting in the mood for a Potter-like Christmas is the book “Harry Potter: Christmas in the Wizarding World”, which guides the reader through the saga’s Christmases using large-scale images from the films. It also contains some stickers and posters, as well as the programme for the Christmas Ball at Hogwarts, and thus provides further decorative elements at the same time:

Magic Gifts – Chocolate Frogs Never Taste Sweeter…

Harry Potter experiences 7 Christmases over the course of the book series and consequently receives a lot of Christmas presents. Among them are funny treats like Bertie Botts beans of every flavour, lovingly homemade gifts like the jumpers knitted by Mrs. Weasly or the wooden flute carved by Hagrid himself and given to him in his first year at Hogwarts. (The portrait of Harry Potter painted by the house-elf Dobby himself is rather unsuccessful from an artistic point of view, but the gesture is all the more touching).

And quite a few of the gifts are, how could it be otherwise, magical objects with special properties that prove quite useful in the course of the plot. Leaving aside the magical homework planners Hermione gives both Harry and Ron in their 5th year at Hogwarts, most of them are also great fun and something you’d love to find yourself under the Christmas tree.

For example, the super-fast “Firebolt” racing broom that Harry receives as an anonymous gift from his godfather Sirius Black in the 3rd volume, or the magical “Map of the Rumrunner” that the Weasly twins give him. And then there is undoubtedly the best gift of all, perhaps the most important magical item that accompanies Harry, Ron and Hermione on their adventures: the Invisibility Cloak! Harry receives it from an anonymous hand in his very first year. True fans, of course, know who the gift is from and what it’s all about.

Here is the scene as it was depicted in the film:

Keeping up with an invisibility cloak or the Firebolt is admittedly difficult. Nevertheless, there are many a Christmas gift that will make the hearts of Potter fans young and old beat faster:

1. a Lego set for Christmas at Hogwarts.

2nd The complete unabridged audiobook edition of the series, read by Stephen Fry.

3. a hoodie with the Hogwarts crest.

4. “Lumos!” – A wand as a light painting stick.

5. A pillow with one of the house coats of arms – What would be better to sleep on? Provided it’s the right house….

If you have the talent and leisure to knit, you can also do the same for Mrs. Weasly and give a home-knitted jumper with special motifs as a gift. The ones Harry gets feature, among other things: a golden Snitch, the Lion of Gryffindor and the Hungarian Horntail, the most dangerous of all dragons, against which Harry had to compete in the Triwizard Tournament.

Harry Potter and the Ghost of Christmas – The Atmospheric Incantation

A welcome Christmas guest: the house elf DobbyThe best thing about the Christmas season is that you finally have time and leisure to get cosy with your own family or close friends and indulge in activities that are sociable and spread festive cheer. Listening to music together, reading books aloud, watching films or playing board games, the spirit of Christmas (the dearest ghost of all) often joins us as if by itself.

How good it is that there is something from the world of Harry Potter to go with all these Christmas activities!

To get you in the mood for a Wizarding World-like Christmas, you can play some atmospheric sounds, such as this Harry Potter Christmas music:

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Read-aloud sessions with the Harry Potter books are also very atmospheric. Whether from mum, dad or, if in doubt, the audio book. Watching one of the Harry Potter films together can also be a cosy Christmas family treat. The first two parts are particularly suitable for this, as we all know that the series gets darker and darker later on.

And all kinds of Potter social games provide interaction and fun, depending on taste and age group:

Happy Christmas! Magical feast! Magical moments! All this we wish you dear readers!!!

Looking for more Christmas ideas? Stay for a glass of butterbeer at Abenteuer Freundschaft and browse a bit. Besides tips and ideas for special occasions like Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Easter, Halloween or birthdays, we also gather numerous time and place-independent leisure tips in this idea treasure trove for friends, for couples and for families.

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