Elaina’s 11th Birthday Party

As the girls get older, the likelihood of a themed birthday party, or even a birthday party at all, seems to get less and less with every passing year. Elaina has recently gotten really into the Harry Potter books, so when she asked me to throw her a Harry Potter-themed party, I was not about to let this one pass me by. And although I may have gone a little overboard on planning for this one, I took full advantage of the fact that the girls are growing up and these opportunities are fleeting.

Let me start off by acknowledging the ever-present elephant in the room: Gabriella’s birthday never occurs while the girls are with me. Because of this, I have only thrown her one birthday party, and even then, I forgot to post about it when I generated my usual summer article. Even though Gabriella rarely gets her own party at our house, I still try to make her feel included as much as possible during Elaina’s party. As I have to tell the girls constantly, I do not have a favorite daughter and love them both equally.

As stated before, Elaina recently got really into the Harry Potter series, which is great, because her Mother and I have been trying for years to get her on the HP train (we are both avid fans). After reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (or Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone to my loyal British readers) over the summer, she just plowed through the next three books; at the time of this writing, she is in the middle of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, my favorite book. After getting some great party ideas from the Interwebs, we were ready to start planning, which began with Hogwarts acceptance letters for invitations (sans the owl delivery service).

For one of the parties I read about, the author’s husband hand-crafted wands for each partygoer, which was something that really intrigued me. Even though I would have to put in some serious work, it made a lot more sense than spending money on useless trinkets which would just be thrown in the trash following the event. After an entire weekend of work, Elaina had 23 unique wands to provide to her guests in lieu of the standard party favors. I guess it means I get to add that to my repertoire as well: Robert Calkins, Wandmaker.

Decorating the house was another fun task the girls and I all took part in. Aside from having house crests all over the place, I labelled my “off-limits” room with Dumbledore’s warning from the first book, while “casting a spell” for floating candles right below the ceiling.

And as always, the girls chose the piñata, which was a golden snitch this time around. They are getting more disciplined though, so at least more than half of the candy made it into the piñata this year.

For the cake, Elaina wanted something a little different this year, specifically for me to make the cake Hagrid gave to Harry on his 11th birthday during the first movie in the series. Although I usually have far too much going with the party to also bake a cake, I wanted to make her happy, so I obliged. It did not hurt that they got to decorate and eat the leftover buttercream frosting as well.

Elaina was very happy with the result, but refused to let me sit on it (like Hagrid), so I begrudgingly had to explain to our guests that it was neither finished nor authentic.

After grabbing some additional decorations, tattoos, and Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans,…

… the usual spread of carnitas nachos was set and Elaina was ready to receive her guests.

One of the most difficult things we needed to create to complete the Harry Potter experience was the Butterbeer. We tried a few online copycat recipes, but they either required hard-to-get ingredients or just tasted like caffeinated cream soda (“That’s a lot of sugar.”). Talking about the party planning at work, I found out my Sergeant Major and her family were not only huge fans of the series, but that her wife had an amazing Butterbeer recipe. It turned out great and our guests absolutely loved it.

Since Elaina was also going as Hermione Granger for Halloween and was planning to dress up during our vacation to Universal Studios Orlando (including the Wizarding World of Harry Potter), I opted to purchase a fairly high-quality costume since she was going to certainly be getting some use out of it; Gabby and I will get our Ravenclaw gear before we leave in January.

Elaina’s guests arrived and I can only hope it was a magical experience for everyone. As one of my friends and I talked about the Army and sports the entire time, the girls grabbed their wands and nachos to hang out for the next two hours.

With the Butterbeer readily available, the girls also had their energy / sugar kick close by in case they needed a pick-me-up.

For the first time, our piñata was thematically-appropriate, as the golden snitch was meant to bounce around and evade pursuing seekers (although hitting it with a bat seems more like a beater thing…).

My friend Dave cranked it up to hard mode, whipping the piñata all over the place as the girls tried to hit it. Eventually, one of them knocked it completely off the rope, leading me to have to intervene and tear the piñata apart.

This turned out to be one of the best parties we have ever thrown, with all kids and parents having a great time, especially when it came to the theme and decorations. Although not as many parents showed up as I would have liked, the girls had a great time and were really happy with their wands (we gave out wands to siblings as well, with even some parents asking me if they could have one). In the end, Elaina was very happy with how her birthday party turned out, and that is all that mattered. As the girls get older, I know we only have a few of these left, so I am not going to waste the opportunity to go all out when I have the chance (Gabriella is going to have a “Leaving Fort Campbell / Birthday Light” (no presents) party right before school ends; Stitch is going to be the theme, so it gives me the chance to serve kalua pork, white rice, and macaroni salad instead of nachos). And as always, just another chance to prove how hard I am willing to work to make my girls happy and their dreams come true.

Thanks for checking in on us.

Cheers!