Harry Potter Movie Marathon

Almost 2 years ago, my kids and I spent 10 months re-listening to all the Jim Dale Harry Potter audiobooks. (Between read-alouds, audiobooks, and independent reading, a couple of my boys have gone through the whole series at least 3 times.) At some point during the school year, we decided to set an end goal that we would finish the series by July 31, Harry Potter’s birthday. We decided to reserve that day for a Harry Potter movie marathon. It turns out you physically CAN’T watch all of the movies in one day, but that didn’t slow us down! As the day approached, I decided to turn it into a whole surprise experience for my kids. This is not something we do all the time. In fact, it was so much work, we may never do it again! However, I’m glad I put in the effort to make that one day special. It’s been a year and I was asking my kids about it recently. They definitely have fond memories. They asked if we could do it again and I said HA…maybe when they’re in their 20s.

The Decorations

My first idea was that I would surprise them by decorating the house while they were sleeping. There were 5 components to my plan.

Balloons

You can tell this was a last minute decision, because I literally ordered these 1 week before the big day. I bought burgandy and gold balloons (affiliate links) and started filling them up as soon as my kids fell asleep. I’m not really big on balloons, but it was a special occasion.

I think I blew up about 20 of each, so I didn’t use the whole pack. If I remember correctly, I PLANNED to do them all, but my lungs couldn’t hack it. I tied them to a string and hung them from our ceiling and taped them in pair in various locations throughout our house.

In the picture below you can see I also got out some of our Harry Potter merchandise, like books and games.

Chalkboard Art

I AM a fan of chalkboard art. There are lots of great quotes, but this is the one I picked that fit the playful theme of the day.

Harry Potter Quotes

Speaking of quotes, this was EXTREMELY last minute, but I think around midnight, I decided to print out some of our favorite Harry Potter quotes and hang them around the house. I’m not entirely sure if this legal…I don’t want to violate copyright law. I’m not selling it, so hopefully it’s okay: You can download the quotes I used here. I just taped them all over the living room and kitchen.

Random Harry Potter Inpsired Art

This I definitely can’t share, but I was inspired by this Harry Potter Party ideas post and did a Google image search for Harry Potter Wanted Posters, then printed some of the images to hang as decorations too.

Hanging Streamers

I’m happy with the way this turned out, but of everything I did to make the day special, this was the one thing that made me think that MAYBE I had lost my mind. By the time I had done all of the above to surprise them for the day, it was about 1 am. I probably should have just let it go, but I had already spent $6 on crepe paper and who am I to let that kind of sunk cost go to waste. This took me longer than it should have. I used a piece of PVC pipe (actually Fort Magic), measured out crepe paper the length of the doorway and taped them carefully onto the pipe in alternating colors. (I sort of wish I had made them a little longer, but when I measured, I forgot about the height of the frame.) If my recollection is correct, by the time I went to bed, it was around 2:30 am. If you decide to do this, maybe plan better than I did. 😂 I will say that my kids did really enjoy the streamers. It was the first sign when they woke up that there was something special going on. (All of my kids sleep in the same room.)

Harry Potter Themed Food

In addition to decorations, I also pre-planned what we were going to eat. I checked out a couple Harry Potter cookbooks from the library, but cooking is not really a strength of mine. I needed something even simpler than what they were offering. I used some of the names of their recipes as inspiration, but otherwise, I just did my own thing.

Harry Potter Themed Breakfast

For breakfast, I found a green drink at the grocery story (Bolthouse Farms Green Goddess), took off the label and called it Polyjuice Potion. I made a fruit platter and just called it Professor Sprout’s Fruit Platter. We bought some pluots that we don’t often buy and called them Mandrake Fruit. I followed this blog post by Raising Dragons to make Dragon Eggs. We also dipped some pretzel sticks in melted chocolate and covered them in sprinkles to make Magic Wands. My kids helped with this the night before.

Harry Potter Themed Lunch

For lunch, I honestly don’t remember why I made Hagrid’s Bath Buns. I’m guessing the name was inspired by one of the cookbooks, but that information has left my brain in the past year. From my notes, it looks like I followed this recipe from Feasting at Home. I think the idea for Pumpkin Pasties also came from a cookbook, but I know I didn’t follow the recipe from the book. I just bought puff pastry sheets and a can of pumpkin pie mix (it may have been in my pantry from the fall). My daughter and I cut squares of puff pastry, spooned the filling inside, folded into triangles, then baked for about 15 minutes at 400 degrees F. They were easy and not horrible, but I’m sure people with culinary skills could do better.

I added some liquid chlorophyl that I purchased while on a health kick to hummus and called it Gillyweed Hummus to serve with Professor Sprout’s Veggie Tray. I followed these instructions from Famous Family Recipes for Butterbeer. My kids loved it.

Harry Potter Themed Dinner

For dinner, I heated up some frozen meatballs and called them Molly Weasley’s Meatballs which I served with gravy. Since I personally don’t eat meat, I also made some tahini/breadcrumb/bean-based “meat”balls for myself. We roasted some potatoes and called them Bubotuber Fries. I found some asparagus at the grocery stores that was a little purple and was inspired to call it Devil’s Snare. My most ambitious project was dessert. I loosely followed this Treacle Tart recipe from My Poppet Living, but I made a crumble topping instead, because it seemed like it would be easier.

Harry Potter Themed Treats

Throughout the day we also had various Harry-Potter themed treats. We actually went to a real candy shop a week before, which we never do. We bought various candies for the day and pretended like it was candy from Honeydukes. I also bought some lemon-flavored popsicles and called them Lemon Pops. These were just little treats we had between meals that kids could snack on while they watched.

I served the magic wands with breakfast (and told my kids they had to have them last), but they would make good mid-day treats instead.

I also tried to make chocolate frogs, but I had a really hard time with the mold I bought. I’m going to need to look into the right way to do this without have the chocolate turn white and the little arms break off if I ever try this again. This is the mold we got, but I’m not sure it was worth it.

Harry Potter Marathon Logistics

Watching all 8 of the Harry Potter movies without breaks would take about 20 hours, which obviously isn’t ideal. In the days leading up to July 31, we watched one movie per evening for 3 days and then planned to watch 5 on the actual marathon day. However, we didn’t actually do it. The movies are about 2.5 hours each and that’s a long time, even for kids. We ended up watching four movies on July 31 and then watched the final movie the next day.

Between movies, we did take a few breaks. We played Harry Potter Clue between two of the movies. I don’t necessarily recommend it. Regular clue is just as fun and a better price, but we were gifted it and my kids love it. If you want a Harry Potter-themed game, this deck building one is a good, which we also own, but we didn’t end up playing it that day. Note that it’s only for 2 to 4 players.

Another activity we did, which was completely spur of the moment, was a potions lab. This was later in the afternoon when I felt like my kids’ brains were going to start melting if they didn’t get up and stretch for a bit.

We used to do this ALL the time when the kids were more like pre-school and kindergarten age, so I actually have a bin in my house with like 80% of what we need, making it easy to throw together. Here are some of the supplies we use:

• Baking Soda
• Distilled White Vinegar
• Cornstarch
• Saline Solution for contacts
• Glue
• Bora Solution (about 1 tsp of borax per 1 cup of warm water)
• Water with food coloring
• Cups or bowls
• Mixing supplies like chopsticks and eating utensils
• Measuring spoons
• Science-y supplies like test tubes and droppers

The advantage of supplies like these is that not only can kids can use them for baking soda and vinegar reactions, but they can also make fun textures like slime, oobleck or gak.

Approximate Schedule

Obviously, you can do what you want. I’m not the boss of you. Just so you can see how this looks realistically, though, here was sort of how it went for us:

10:30 pm to 2:30 am – decorate (do not recommend 🤪)

7:30 am – wake up to start breakfast

8:30 am – wake THEM up and let them appreciate all your hard work

9 am – start the first movie and have breakfast

11:30 am – play a Harry Potter themed game

12:30 pm – lunch and start second movie

3 pm – snack and start third movie

4 pm – take a break for potions play

5 pm – continue third movie

6:30 pm – short break and have kids help with dinner

7 pm – dinner and start fourth movie

I don’t know how I thought at some point we were going to fit 5 movies into the day. Maybe if I’d woken them up early, but then I would have gotten even LESS sleep! Also, in case it’s not obvious, I actually did very little WATCHING with my kids. About an hour before each movie ended, I would get up and go start cooking food or prepping potions or doing dishes, so of the about 10 hours of movie watching time, I probably only sat with them for about 3 or 4. The day went by fast!

If you decide to give it a shot, I hope it goes well and you and your kids have a memorable, magical experience! ✨

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