Getting ready for Harry Potter...

Sometimes I think I spend more time "dressing the table" than I do cooking the food for a party. Truth be told, I'd rather decorate the table than chop and peel and mix and bake anyway. The table looks great, though, and well worth the effort. Everything is in ivory, purple and black, with a little gold and silver tossed in for glitter.

The place cards are purple, each decorated with a little owl sitting next to the person's name, plus I used a gold glitter-pen to highlight the tree branch that the owl is sitting on. At each place setting, there's a Harry Potter bookmark and a Harry Potter pen. There's also the Dumbledore-decorated "crackers," which we'll pop open during dessert. Those are always fun, and each of these wizard-crackers has a puzzle or magic trick inside of them. My husband has made up a Harry Potter Trivia Quiz, which we'll all do after lunch and before dessert, and we can use the H.P. pens to write in the answers.

For the centerpiece, I have a black runner going down the center of the ivory tablecloth, and there are black beaded spiders along the web design of the runner--- that was an after-Halloween sale item last year, and it's perfect for a Harry Potter lunch because of the giant spiders that were in one of the volumes. A couple of months ago, we found a Harry Potter doll at a yard sale, so he's sitting in the center of the table, surrounded by the purple-paper wrapped gifts for everyone. I also have dark purple-blue goblets with tea-lights in them along the center of the table. The sideboard is decorated with more dark candle-lit goblets and all seven of the Harry Potter volumes. (I didn't pay a penny for those vintage goblets... I brought the rest of my porcelain swans into the antique shop and traded those to L for the cobalt goblets, which are decorated with moons and stars--- very Harry Potter-ish, and very Pajama Program-ish, because of their moon/star logo.)

I've got the jar of Essence of Dittany (table sugar) propped up on a gold pedestal, and the bottle of Polyjuice Potion (green apple soda) is also displayed on the black-spider table runner. Ivory china, gold flatware, purple napkins...... and three glasses-- a goblet for water or iced tea, a sherry glass for the Butter Beer (cream soda), and a shot glass for the Polyjuice (green apple soda). -- You can't drink too much of that Polyjuice, so a shot glass is just perfect.

Just about everything is done in the kitchen..... I've made a Greek spinach pie (which you won't find in the Harry Potter series, but the green color makes it wizard-worthy). Tomorrow morning, I will make Hippogriff eggs (deviled eggs mixed with tuna and avocado-- green food once again). I also have some Petrified Vegetables (slices of real vegetables that have been oven-dried). K and B are bringing a pistachio cake for dessert (there's that green color again), and C and R are bringing along another side-dish, which we're hoping will be their delicious Italian zucchini pie (do you see a green theme going on here?).

Harry Potter would be proud of all this fuss, I'm sure. Maybe we should have sent an invitation to J. K. Rowling.


The girl who is making the flip-flop slippers for the Pajama Program stopped by today.... she brought 30 pairs of her colorful slippers, plus 8 pairs of boy's slippers from Wal-Mart. Her crocheted embellishments on the flip-flops are for girls only-- they're just not what boys would want to wear, but she found some Spiderman slippers at Wal-Mart at end-of-season sale prices, and she was kind enough to include those also. While she was here, we got to talking about different things... and I found out she's a big fan of Barry Manilow. (I knew I really liked this girl!) She also likes to play cards and games, and I asked her if she'd like to join our Charades group...... so she will be getting one of the invitations to our next Charades night, which will be the Halloween party. And that will be here before we know it.....

But for the moment, Harry Potter is number one on the Hit Parade.