Harry Potter Welcoming Feast

For our "back to school" family dinner this year we decided to have a Harry Potter-style "Start of Term Welcoming Feast."

I read a book recently (that I'd love to review fully sometime if I get the chance) that described the virtues of the Harry Potter books for children.  Most-importantly being that they break down the "nerd" stereotype.  Harry Potter wears glasses, has messy hair, and does well in school, studying and --usually-- doing his homework.  But at the same time he is a star quiddich player, has a great girlfriend, and goes through fabulous adventures to outwit and physically best the "bad guy". That is an empowering role-model for children.

(Also in Jeremy's dissertation research on creativity he came across some research in which children were shown clips from the Harry Potter movie and then asked to complete a creativity exercise.  The ones who watched scenes that contained magical elements greatly outscored the creativity of the students who had just watched a scene non-magical in nature.  So Harry Potter also encourages creativity, and we're all about that.)

So, Jeremy has recently finished a s.l.o.w. reading of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone with Owen, and they  really enjoyed it together.  That may be where we leave it for now, along with maybe some Tales of Beetle the Bard or something.  We won't encourage him too quickly into the later books, but are happy to see his imagination be now peaked with the ideas from the wizarding world of Harry Potter.

There are lots of great ideas for Harry Potter parties around the internets.  We kept ours pretty simple, and mainly a dinner. There were plenty of great ideas for sweet snack buffets, but not so many ideas for actual food.  A great list of foods eaten in Harry Potter is given here, but many of them are just plain-old food like "roast chicken"  So we got a bit creative with some of the food ideas, and ended up with a fun buffet.

(I printed out food labels in this great font.)

We made "Cornish Pasties", little hand-pies filled with a mixture of beef, potatoes, carrots, peas, onion, and celery, with it's own gravy.  They were delicious and we decided we need to make more hand-pies around here.

We had "Herbology Bites", just little slices of french bread with herbed cream cheese and a slice of cucumber.

I also made "Forbidden Forest Fiddleheads".  Though you actually can eat fiddleheads, ours are just my pesto crescents. 

A good old fashioned cottage pie. It's what we made with all the rest of the filling from the hand-pies, with the potatoes mashed and spread on top.

There's a serious lack of fruit in the wizarding world, so we came up with pineapple slice "Golden Gallions"

Of course no Harry Potter Feast is complete without butter beer.  Ours is a mix of cream soda and ginger ale with a bit of butterscotch syrup.

I decorated the rims of the glasses with golden sugar sprinkles.  I saw that idea somewhere and just loved it.

I like having this annual family dinner.  We really love to invite friends over and throw a big party, but I feel like my children need to know that I will do it for just them as well--that they are worth it to me.  

Then there was the dessert table, "Pumpkin Pasties", "Mincemeat Pies", "Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans", "Chocolate Wands" (Chocolate-dipped pretzel rods with sprinkles, which was what Owen really wanted to make for the night), "Cockroach Clusters" (anything dipped in chocolate), and "Golden Snitch" (Ferrero Rocher or any other gold-wrapped candy).

Really I just set all this out for the picture and then put it away!  The boys were most excited about the Beans, which were actually only regular Jelly Bellies in my old Bertie Bott's sack, but they didn't mind.  Jonas kept telling me that his red ones were tomatoes, and Owen came up with plenty of disgusting flavor names for all the beans he put in his mouth.  Wyatt didn't care what flavor they were as long as they were in his mouth! 

Jeremy and I preferred to snack on miniature pumpkin pasties all night long, and everything else waited for another day (or at least until breakfast). So another semester has begun, back to school for some of us, and not back to school for others.  But the year has begun either way, and we will face it with confidence. 

My 6 Year Old Doesn't Believe in the Easter Bunny

On Easter Sunday evening Owen was in the kitchen and noticed on the counter some scraps of tissue paper left over from the papier mache eggs I made for the Easter baskets, and he looked up at me and said, "Mom, are you and Dad the Easter Bunny?  You are--aren't you?"

To preface that question, we've been a bit busy recently.  We were gone for spring break, then Jeremy was gone to a conference for a week, then he spent the last week taking his preliminary exam for his PhD.  So really, I was behind on things like--putting out Easter decorations etc.  So to tell the truth--I don't think the word "Easter Bunny" was spoken in our house one single time before Easter this year. 

I'm really not big on indoctrinating my children with worldly traditions.  Because for their first few years, they don't even get what the traditions are all about.  Then maybe for 2-3 years they "know" who Santa clause or the Easter bunny are enough to anticipate them, but then they become old enough to realize they are not real.  So I don't really feel the need to push these ideas on my children for only a year or two of actual beleif (in something that's not real).

But for sure I love the traditions themselves.  When Owen, our first, was about 22 months old, Easter Sunday was approaching.  So for the last few mornings in the week preceding Easter, I had Owen check on his little basket first thing.  It was empty, empty, empty, and then one morning it was full!  There were treats and a little wind-up chicken that laid jelly bean eggs.  What fun!  He was so excited.  But I didn't tell him it was from a magic Easter bunny.

Jeremy is studying Creativity for his PhD, and he recently read of a study where kids were show clips of a Harry Potter movie--some of them watching scenes where "magic" was being used, and some were shown "non-magic" scenes.  Then they were asked to do a creativity exercise.  The children who watched the magic scenes before the exercise showed more creativity in their responses.  So if I want creative children shouldn't I convince them that the Tooth Fairy is real? I don't think that we have to believe the magic is real in order to enjoy pretending the magic is real.  Else why would Harry Potter be so popular to adults as well as children? 

So Owen and I have talked this Easter, and last Christmas (when we read a book about Christmas traditions all over the world) about "isn't it fun?" to do this, or pretend that?  And what do you think?  Could it be, maybe?  But I am not going to insult his intelligence, once he has figured things out to say, "No I'm not the Easter bunny, the Easter bunny magically goes all over the world in one night hopping around and delivering all that candy you saw in the store last week to little baskets.

So back to his question--I answered it truthfully, because I had not been trying to convince him there was an Easter bunny in the first place.  (Though I did encourage him to let people that wanted to believe have their fun.)  My guess is that the kids were all talking about it at school--that's where he was being encouraged in the idea that there was an Easter bunny coming, and that's also where other (older?) children may have sown his seeds of of doubt that there may not be an Easter bunny.  So I just let it be.

We won't stop celebrating the tradition of surprise-filled baskets on Easter morning, because I still think that's fun.  And we don't have to believe it's real to believe it's fun.  And the other truth of the matter is, for Christmas, Easter, or any occasion when surprises "magically appear"  I find it very hard to keep it all a secret in a home where I am trying more and more every year to include more homemade among the surprises.  But will my children be deprived for receiving baskets full of unique homemade surprises and treats instead of a basket full of  the traditional (from my childhood too) supermarket treats? 

I think not.

Chocolate Chip Ghost Pancakes

 Happy Halloween!

 We had chocolate chip ghosts for breakfast.

 Whole wheat flour doesn't lend for a very ghostly appearance--but we'll take it anyway. 

 Then we started our day with a flannel board telling of The Chocolate Chip Ghost.  It's a silly story about some ghosts who disobey their mother and end up in a lot of trouble. 

We get it out every year for family home evening around Halloween time.  Here is a free printable version if you're interested.

We'll just be spending the rest of the day having spooky fun and trying to stay out of trouble.

Not-Boring Easter Basket Candy Substitutions

Ten years ago, when looking at expensive pre-filled Easter baskets at the grocery store, I would scoff.  To me the baskets filled with toy cars and fashion dolls rather than candy seemed to embody a way for society to be manipulated into celebrating all holidays by buying gifts instead of some of the simpler traditions.  Ten years later I have a different opinion.  Not that I would want to buy a pre-filled basket, but that maybe small toys have a better place in our children's Easter baskets than a 4 1/2 month supply of candy. 

At Owen's first Easter he was ten months old.  As parents we had looked forward to sharing holidays with our children as a great joy in our future.  But when the time came we thought, "What are we going to fill Owen's Easter basket with?"  He was barely into strained peas--we didn't want to give him jelly beans and chocolate rabbits.

That year we ended up with a little pull string vibrating ducky, an Easter bib, and plastic eggs full of "O" cereal and baby puffs.

Every year since then has been about the same, with a small amount of "classic" Easter candy added in to the mix.  The truth is Jeremy and I like a little bit of that too (particularly some quality chocolate).  And now with more kids, we spread around that candy into four baskets so there's not too much for one person to enjoy over the course of a few days, and then be done without ever having been "overdone".

Our baskets from left: Jeremy's, Mine, Owen's, Jonas', Wyatt's. (I look like the greedy one.)

Our kids have small Easter baskets.  When we bought Owen's for his first easter I thought we could buy him a bigger one later.  I then decided, why buy a bigger basket that just needs more to fill it up?  

So each year we've looked for different surprises to add to the baskets that are not candy.  This year the random assortment included Easter pencils.  Jonas and Wyatt's baskets both included some California Baby Sunscreen.  (Yes, sunscreen--don't you wish I was your mother?)

Owen's basket included some oil pastels.  He's been asking for some since experimenting with them at art class.  This seemed like a good time to oblige, and he was very excited to get them. 

Everyone but Wyatt (chocking hazard you know) received a series 4 Lego Minifigure.  A certain dad around here is kind of obsessed with them.  

 What can I say--they are pretty fun. 

Then of course there was "O" cereal for the baby.  He loved popping the little eggs open. 

Many people think of Easter celebrations as being pretty non-eco-friendly.  I guess it could be--but that's not how I was raised.  We have "permanent" Easter baskets that get packed away to the basement and brought back out each year.  They are made of natural wood and reed.  The plastic Easter eggs and grass are festive nostalgia.  They are not eco-friendly products, but we use them in an eco-friendly way--we reuse it all every year.  Though, my mother passed on these practices as "thrift" and "frugality," and never realized she'd have left such a politically correct and "green" legacy.   

I don't see myself buying any more plastic eggs, we always end up getting free eggs every year from the zoo, or library, or friends.  But if I did find myself in need of more eggs or perhaps, specialty-sized I'd go for making some cute fill-able felt Easter eggs. 

Celebrating Easter does not have to equate with a huge plastic basket overflowing with plastic eggs full of candy that makes everyone sick and cranky and then get's thrown away at the end of the season.  As with everything else in life, we do Easter our own way, not the way society dictates.  But that doesn't mean we are unable to enjoy any of the cultural traditions of the holiday.  Our Easter includes time spent in religious teaching and reflection, good food cooked and enjoyed together as a family, Easter baskets filled with a few small trinkets and toys, and a little bit of candy as the cherry on top of our Easter Sunday.

Pi

When I studied abroad I spent a lot of time on my own.  A lot of time just out and about.  And all that time with notebooks and journals recording my experiences and musings.  I was at a point where I was anticipating moving on to the next phase in my life.  

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.

A long with the stories of train rides, and sight-seeing, I wrote goals for my future life, my life as a wife and as a mother.  I'll pass on the sappy details of the kind of wife I wanted to be (but am not really), but share one of my goals as a mother.  My greatest goal for building family unity and breaking the monotony of daily life at home was to regularly celebrate obscure holidays. 

At the time my example was "like the day ice cream was invented", which I have yet to integrate as a yearly tradition, but one that I love and have had to work hard to remember because it's too good to pass up is Pi Day. 

3.14. . .

With a little bit of forethought, and a decent chunk of time this afternoon, I was able to produce a pie on Pi Day.  (Although I've heard tale of pie parties on Pi Day for many years--I do believe this was my first year participating.)

Owen was totally bewildered.  But anytime you "talk something up" they will go along and be excited about it.  And the best part was--the boys actually ate their pie.  Sometimes they get really excited about something I am making and then aren't actually that impressed when they take a bite.  But I suppose the purpose was still served--life was a little more interesting around here this afternoon and evening.

Here's to any and all future days of celebration for any of the smallest reasons!

Two Weeks Later--Still Digesting

 

Cardboard

I pretty much did what I wanted for Jonas' costume.  Jonas is still obsessed with trains, so I decided if I wanted him to be excited about wearing a costume that a train would be the way to go.   It was made from a diaper box, but I tried to come up with some cute details to make it more fun.

 I knew it had to have a bell.  So we rigged that across with a pipe cleaner.  Jeremy came up with using thumb tacks for rivets and bought the gold house numbers for the side.  The wheels are oat canister lids.  And the funnel is a cornmeal container.

 Jonas was so adorable putting around in his little train.  (I am his mother.)  But I was pleased that what we ended up with was no too cumbersome for him.  He was able to get around just fine and really enjoyed himself.

Owen is getting older and I really want to allow him some more input in his costume.  So we did a google image search (though you always have to be a bit careful with those) for "cardboard costume."  And I asked him to choose what he wanted to do. He saw some transformer ideas he really liked.  So the next night we told him to draw out the costume he wanted.

I'm so intrigued by the drawings on the left.  You can see he was trying to draw out the outline from what it looked like in his head--narrower at the bottom, with things sticking out around the top--so interesting.  Then we pulled up a picture for him and he drew the one on the right. 

Jeremy worked on the body, and some boots, and we printed out some insignias for him.  Owen colored them cut them out and pasted them right where he wanted them. 

 I think it was good to allow Owen to be so involved in choosing and making his costume.  We could have done better, but we could have done a lot worse as well. 

We ran out of time on everyone's costumes.  We weren't thinking ahead to the fact that the costumes all needed to be ready 4 days before Halloween for the party we went to at church.  So Owen's costume was missing some of the detail work I would have liked.  But I'm not going to feel guilty about it.  Owen loved his costume.

I love doing the mostly-homemade costumes.  I love doing the cardboard costumes--it all seems so nostalgic to me.  And to me celebrating holidays is all about the history. 

Seasonal Traditions

I really love shopping at Target--I always find great things there.  But I recently saw some merchandise that I decided I just really have a problem with.

In the Halloween section I saw quite a few products that, although cute and Halloween-y by design, were not Haloween-y by nature.  Here's a few examples of what I mean:

It's a "Countdown to Costume" calendar, with a little window to open each day in anticipation of the holiday.  This of course is a total rip-off of the Germanic traditional Advent Calendars counting down the days to Christmas.   

There were a few more Christmas rip-offs too.  Halloween Nutcrackers, like the traditional soldier nutcrackers seen at Christmastime.  That based on our cultural love of Tchaikovsky's ballet "The Nutcracker" performed often at Christmastime.  Also, there were kits to build "Haunted Gingerbread Houses."

Honestly the Nutcrackers and Haunted Gingerbread houses don't get to me quite as much as the advent calendar.  I get that people have nutcracker collections and want novelty ones.  (I mean we spent $1.99 to get a Lego minifigure dressed as an English explorer with a pith helmet after all.) And candy houses probably originated from the Grimm fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel which isn't particularly Christmas-related other than the fact that most of our Christmas traditions are of Germanic origin. 

But the thing that really threw me over the edge, which I didn't get a picture of because they were all sold out by the time I made it back to target with my camera (believe it or not blogging isn't the #1 priority in my life) was the Pumpkin Patch Hunt set.  Sets of little round plastic pumpkins that you pop open, fill with candy then go hide outside for your kids to find.

. . . sound familiar?

Long ears, cotton tail, pastel-colored baskets ring a bell?  That is an Easter egg hunt they are talking about!  Now, I love doing fun things with my children and celebrating holidays; but I have two problems with these products I saw.

#1 I get really frustrated by something where you can look at the product and know that "they" are just trying to find an easy way to "cash in" on existing traditions. . .  "Give me a piece of that market pie."   

#2 "They" are effectively killing all of our meaningful traditions by essentially homogenizing all of our holiday celebrations.  The candy companies have been doing it for years.  They just slap a different wrapper on the same candy bar and suddenly it's a holiday candy.  No! Candy Corns are for Halloween. Candy Canes are for Christmas.  Conversation Hearts are for Valentines Day.  Peeps and Cadbury Eggs are for Easter.

Fireworks are for Fourth of July, Caroling is for Christmas, Auld lang syne is for New Year's.  If we homogenize all of our holiday traditions we will, in fact, be loosing the thing that we look forward to holidays for.  The little memories and traditions are what make holidays a fun time that is different from the days before and after.


It's fall.  Take a walk to look at the changing leaves.  Carve a pumpkin.  Eat some candy corn and pumpkin spice bars with cream cheese frosting.  Celebrate Oktoberfest.  Make a Halloween costume, and visit your neighbors. Go apple picking.

 Take a trip to a corn maze or pumpkin patch.  It's fun.  It's more fun because it only happens once. each. year.

Perhaps I've Gone Too Far

We had what you might call an "arrangement" growing up. For our birthdays we could have a "friend party" every other year. And on the other years we had a "family party" in which our parents and siblings were the only guests.

I always understood the virtues of this arrangement growing up. With five children there would be a significant cost and amount of work involved with yearly parties for each of us. And my mom made us homemade birthday cakes either way. I never felt gypped in the birthday area.

But as a parent I have a problem with this arrangement. See I like entertaining. I really enjoy working on a theme and brainstorming all the ideas to go along with it. Then I like to watch the party come together and see what made the cut in the end, and what ideas worked well, and which ones didn't or were left out.

I definitely feel that there shouldn't be an exorbitant cost involved.  And you shouldn't let the party plans make you crazy either. But sometimes it's hard to take it easy and not go overboard. I tried to keep this in mind working on Owen's party. It may seem like I went a little nuts on the "Dino Egg Hunt" party, but believe me--I had a lot more ideas that I didn't use.

There was the idea to make the boys dino fossil eggs that they could crack open to reveal a toy dino inside. I saw some recipe using coffee grounds and such but I don't really have a good source of coffee grounds. So then I thought of making eggs out of sugar molds. But In the end I didn't get around to it.

I remembered too late that jell-o sells jiggler egg molds. I didn't have 6 weeks for shipping, so I checked e-bay. . . "vintage" my eye! Then I realized I could just have my mom mail me hers. . . except she apparently was vacationing at her mountain-top cabin. Totally inconvenient Mom! So that idea was out.

Instead of hyper-colored Easter eggs I thought it would be great to make them look more dino-y and spray paint them with that speckle spray paint. . .

And the greatest idea of all: little straw pith helmets. . .

Yeah that would've been awesome.

So obviously the helmets were out for the cost reason--though they really weren't that expensive (see I'm justifying) and would have been great. Other ideas didn't make the cut because of time and effort.

But even though I left things out did I still go overboard?

The cost of the party was really pretty low. I made a homemade cake. we reused old Easter eggs and brown paper produce bags. We decorated only with toys and the pictures the boys already had.

We bought a pack of plastic dinos and some dino fruit snacks for prizes--really the most expensive thing I bought was the chocolate rock candy. (But really--soooo worth it. They looked awesome!)

I loved how the party turned out. I loved doing the party for my creative outlet as much as for Owen. Some may say that makes me one of those crazy wannabe-super-moms. But am I?

I maintain that people don't entertain and socialize as much as they used to and I think that should be changed. So I use my child's birthday as a "socially acceptable" time to do that.

Owen has now had a "friend" birthday every year except for the summer we were away on Jer's internship. As of right now I think I'd find it hard to not have a party every year. But who knows--with three plus kids I may get tired of the hassle.

On the other hand with three plus boys we may just be able to have fun parties where we go crazy with a "boy theme" of choice, and enjoy it just as much simply within our own family--no outside friends needed.

Three Kings Celebration

Jeremy and I can have some differing ideas on Holiday Celebrations based on his years living in France and my years living in Germany. Last night was Epiphany or the last of the 12 Days of Christmas. The date commemorates the arrival of the three kings with their gifts for the baby Jesus of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

In Germany I remember learning that people would dress up as the three kings Kaspar, Melchior and Balthasar, and visit homes and leave their initials and the year chalked above the door frame.

Well, It might really confuse people around here if we showed up at their house dressed up and demanding to deface their personal property, so we've settled on celebrating this one the French way. With a Galette des Rois or kings cake. It's traditionally a pastry cake with an almond-creme filling, and a surprise hidden inside.

This years version has been our favorite one we've tried.

Then the youngest child at the party gets under the table, and as the galette is being served, they choose who the next piece is going to. As everyone eats they look for the small figurine or almond that is hidden in one of the slices. Whoever gets that slice is crowned as "King for the Day."

(It just may have been me last night.)

We served the galette along with cranberry wassail. The cranberry wassail is a great drink if you want something different, or are sick of the hot apple cider served all fall, but still want a festive winter drink.

We had a great time last night and were happy our friends made it out despite the blizzarding conditions outside!


Cranberry Wassail

4 Cups Cranberry Juice
4 Cups Water
2 Cups Orange Juice
1 Cup Pineapple Juice
1/4 Cup Lemon Juice
1 Cup Sugar
3 Cinnamon Sticks

Combine in a large pot and simmer 15 minutes.