Cold Spaghetti

In honor of the release of The Deathly Hallows, our neighborhood turned out a big Harry Potter party on Friday night. The kids went to bed at the regular time. Then at 9:15, I crept to Will’s contoured, sleeping body and quietly whispered: “Will, do you want to go to a Special Midnight Party?” He jerked away so quickly and with such excitement that his head almost smacked me square in the face. It made his sleeping position make a bit of sense: he sleeps so that, at any moment, he can leap up and be ready for action. No rest for this kid. So, Will was ready, with one request: could he be SUPERMAN for this Special Party. Well OF COURSE. Superman, is like, Harry Potter’s best friend.
Whole Foods had a HUGE table of food (all appropriately named things like puking pastilles and Bott’s every flavor beans) and offered several games including spell toss (you had to correctly recite a spell while tossing hoops into glittery buckets), snitch head bands (I thought these were really cute), and broom races. Kate was pretty chill. Will was… well, let’s say that his enthusiasm for midnight parties dulls after the 30 seconds of adrenaline wear off. One of his friends from school showed up, too (he was dressed as an Astronaut) and the pair went off, hand in hand, down the street, discussing their status as Superheros as they went.
Many stores participated. The pictures show Quidditch (Whole Foods), Weasley’s Wizard Weezers (Magic Box Toys), and Flourish and Blotts (Octavia Books). Other included Ollivander’s (local art store) and a “House Elf Cookie Station” (bakery where kids could decorate magically themed cookies). There was plenty of sugar available at every.
The bookstore handed out maps of the neighborhood (on cool parchment paper) for kids to stamp at each location. Prizes and games were everywhere. All of the stores employees (and family members, it seemed) were dressed as Hogwarts notables… and WELL dressed at that. There was no mistaking Moaning Myrtle, Snape, Umbridge (she was even walking around going “ahem ahem”), and more. When he found out that the back patio was closed up (there is a coy pond there and Will likes to go visit the fish), Will got a little rambunctious. Trelawney captured his attention for a short while, as she told a boy of about 8 that “very odd things would happen to his second cousin, or maybe a neighbor.”Here’s Will, my Superman, surveying the night. Although we only stayed out for an hour, the following day, Will was CRANKY. The kind of cranky that would make adults without children run to a doctor for sterilization. Paul made me swear that we would NEVER AGAIN, under ANY circumstances, think it would be a good idea to interrupt Will once he was asleep. NEVER. But it was fun while it lasted!
(The white above are people wearing the fun golden snitch head bands.)