The end of a magical era

When I think about having children someday, the thought of the bedtime story ritual is one that warms my heart. I’m excited to revisit all my childhood favorites with my own kids, which means that as soon as they’re old enough we’ll be reading Harry Potter together (or maybe just following along in the book while Jim Dale reads to us, since he is amazing). And I’m sure that, somewhere along the way, I will tell them all about what it was like to experience Pottermania firsthand.

I will tell them about how I read the first book in the series when I was twelve and deemed it overrated, then had to swallow my words after I finished the second and third and realized what all the fuss was about. I will reminisce about the fighting that took place between my siblings and I over whose turn it was to read the latest hardcover before we wised up and each just bought our own and read them together in the backyard.

I will tell them about how the bookstore I worked at in college had a midnight release party for both the 6th and 7th books, which meant that I not only got to start reading the books a day before the general public (shh…nobody tell Richard), but also that, once the clock struck midnight, I got to hand out copies to scores of eager kids decked out in cloaks and lightning scars that smiled at me like I was santa. Those parties were also a bit hectic and crazy at times, but luckily friends showed up to keep me company:

When the subject of the Harry Potter movies comes up, I’ll be sure to tell my offspring about how, on the night that the very last movie was released, their dad and I went to the Ivory’s party dressed up as Oliver Wood and Katie Bell, Gryffindor’s finest quidditch players.


An obscure costume choice to be sure, but the rules of the Ivory’s HP party are firm: you must RSVP with your character in advance and no duplicates are allowed.

The party itself was elaborate, whimsical, and a great excuse to unleash my inner Potter geek. In short, it was the perfect way to say goodbye to this phenomenon. Thanks for the invite, Abs.

With Smash, Matt, and Smeegs...a.k.a. Bellatrix, Crabbe, and Kreacher (Smeegs even shaved his head for the occasion):
Quidditch:
The feast:



Preo siblings with Abby and Steph (Fred Weasley and Hermione):
Honeydukes Sweet Shop:
The midnight screening of the movie at good old Holladay theater:
Would you like to hear my take on the movie? If not you may kindly exit out of this screen, because here it is:

I liked this movie up until the last half hour or so. I’m usually down when the HP movies deviate from the books a bit, since the movies will never be as great as the books anyway so you might as well change it up, but in this case I thought the changes they made to the plot after Harry meets up with Dumbledore in that parallel universe thingy were pretty freaking lame.

If the filmmakers had left things more or less the way JK wrote them the ending would have been a lot more satisfying and theatrical. Instead we had to hear Neville deliver some cheesed-out speech and see Harry and Voldy spin around in a weird scene that looked like someone made it using the photobooth function on their Macbook. Plus Ginny is awful as usual. When I watch the movies I always find myself wishing that the writers would have just gone for broke and had Harry hook up with Luna instead since they have way more chemistry together. Oh well. At least we still have the puppet pals: