A Very Harry Christmas

I love Harry Potter and I love road trips with my crew so I knew this had to eventually merge. My love of Harry Potter began in high school but I truly fell in love with the books in college after being forced to read them by a friend. As a former AP kid, I hated reading and did everything in my power not to do so but HP changed that and now I adore curling up with a good book… even if I’ve read it a dozen times. When the pandemic hit my crew and I realized we had to make dedicated time for each other and obviously this was a very limited situation so we figured Friday night movie marathons would be a good balance of fun but safe. Harry Potter seemed like a natural starting point because there were eight movies in the original series and two more in the prequel plus two of us loved the world of Harry already. Being us, or me being me, we made them themed with all kinds of fun snacks and treats and sometimes even decorations! It was such a bright spot in the midst of being locked in our homes for 95% of the week.

All of that led to the moment of realizing there was an after hours, holiday themed meet up at Universal. Now obviously people went for the whole park but our main mission was Hogwarts! Can you imagine Hogsmeade at Christmas? All twinkly and glittery!!! An absolute dream to this quaint Christmas loving soul. We also have the advantage of each member of our squad being a different Hogwarts house so we naturally needed themed outfits. We’ve always joked that our group gets along so well because each house put together is the perfect balance. Too many Gryfindors and you might get yourself in a spot of trouble. Too many Slytherins and you might all come across as unapproachable and icy. Too many Ravenclaws and you might not go on the adventures you read about and how can a group survive without a Hufflepuff to lovingly show compassion when it’s so difficult. It really is the perfect mix of attitudes, skills and desires. It also makes for really cute pictures!

Now, because I am completely ridiculous, I had multiple themed accessories for our journey including nails, shirts, pjs and more. To be fair, I already owned most of this because green is a good color for me. The Lord knew what coloring to give me when he made me a Slytherin. Ha!

Road trip snacks are also EXTREMELY important to my crew so I packed British candies, Bertie Botts and Sherbert Lemons (Dumbledore’s favorite and password) for the 9+ hour trek.

Yes, we both have a churro in one hand and a pretzel in the other. Magical!

So how was it?!? MA-GIC-AL!!!! Is that too cheesy? Because it was just that… absolutely magical and that was for everyone present. Young or old… though 90% of the people we saw were teens or older with only a few kids scattered about. I can definitely say that doing the after hours meet up is totally worth the extra cost. Wait times were minimal and food was free which was amazing even with a limited menu. It was so nice to just wander about and take everything in because every corner of the park was festive.

I highly recommend this for anyone who doesn’t mind pulling an all nighter, especially for the holiday event!