Happy Birthday, Harry Potter! Here’s How You Can Celebrate
“I Solemnly Swear that I Am Up to No Good.”
Cue Hedwig’s Theme, grab your wand, and let the celebration begin! What are we celebrating you ask? Well, it’s “The Boy Who Lived/Lives” birthday! That’s right, it’s our favorite wizard’s birthday.
Photo: Warner
Mr. Harry James Potter was born on July 31st, 1980, making him 43 years old today. Whether you live close to the Wizarding Worlds at Universal Studios or you live a ways away, whether you’re a fan or a die-hard Potterhead, here are seven different ways to celebrate the seven-book wonder that is Harry Potter.
House Colors
Anyone that likes anything about this franchise has taken the tests and knows what house they belong to.
Hogwarts House Colors
Even though today is all about Harry, you can still sport your house colors Gryffindor or not.
Grab your scarlet and gold, yellow and black, blue and bronze, or green and silver, and make your wardrobe today extra festive.
Bake a Cake
It’s his birthday so the obvious is to bake a cake to celebrate. The cake, however, has a sentimental feel to it if you have read or watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone.
Photo: people
On Harry’s 11th birthday right at midnight, Hagrid shows up to take Harry to Hogwarts and away from the Dursleys, he gives Harry a cake that might be a little smashed from Hagrid sitting on it as well as giving Dudley the infamous curlicue pigtail. Bake a cake to celebrate and don’t sit on it.
Butterbeer
The best drink in the Wizarding World may be up for debate ha-ha just kidding, we all know the correct answer is the famous butterbeer and you should have one and toast to The Chosen One’s birthday.
Photo: Harry Potter New York
If you are in the parks celebrating there are plenty of spots to receive this sweet drink, you just have to decide how you want it.
The parks serve butterbeer in five different ways. You have the traditional cold butterbeer, hot butterbeer, frozen butterbeer (my personal favorite), butterbeer fudge, and butterbeer ice cream. They are all really good options; you just have to choose which one you’re feeling for the day you’re having.
Photo: Universal
If you are home celebrating, google butterbeer recipes and find which one sounds best to you, but beware you might end up looking through hundreds of recipes to find the perfect one.
A toast to you Mr. Potter, thank you for being born and bringing the Wizarding World to life.
Take the Forbidden Journey
If you are hanging out at Universal Studios today, whether that be in Orlando and Hollywood or across the pond in Beijing or Osaka you need to walk into Hogwarts and ride Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.
Photo: Universal
This ride takes you through several of Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s adventures throughout the books and the movies.
Photo: Universal
Some of the adventures you can experience on this ride are getting on a broomstick and flying through the air as you play quidditch, riding in the flying car through the Forbidden Forest, and so much more.
This ride is not for everyone as it does cause motion sickness. You have been warned. If you are chilling at home, you can also ride this ride through the power of the internet. Though you won’t be experiencing the ride in its entirety, you can still go on an adventure with Harry and friends for our favorite wizard’s birthday.
Cue Hedwig’s Theme
If you have no time to truly celebrate Harry’s birthday but are still a superfan like myself… you can go on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Music and listen to magical soundtracks that helped elevate these films into one of the top movie series we can enjoy over and over.
Photo: ThemeParkHipster.com
There are several composers and artists who helped with the creation of the 8 film soundtracks, but the one that started it all is none other than John Williams, who scored the first three films and created the famous Hedwig’s Theme that everyone knows and loves.
Photo by Bachrach/Getty Images)
If you are at work, driving in the car, or just sitting at home you can listen to the spectacles that are the soundtracks from the Harry Potter franchise. I’m listening to them as I write this.
Pay homage to where it all began
Calling all bookworms this one’s for you. To celebrate you could read all 7 books in one day.
Photo: Amazon
Though the only way you could achieve this challenge is if you started this right at 12am this morning and read till midnight tonight and could read 753 words a minute, which I really don’t think is possible.
But you could pay homage to where it all began by reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone which is only a measly 223 words.
Photo: Amazon
This book changed and is still changing people’s lives every day. It would only take you a few hours to dive into the magic and relive your childhood, after all, “It’s not every day that your young man turns 11, now is it.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves Hagrid. Grab a snack, sit in your comfy chair, and read, read, read. Who knows maybe you can get through a few of the books.
The Superfan Showdown
Some of you reading this have done this before and I commend you for your dedication, but I have tried to do this before and have failed multiple times. You must be fully dedicated and probably lay off the snacks and drinks to achieve this, but did you know you can watch all 8 Harry Potter films in one day.
Photo: IMDB
In order to accomplish this challenge that all die-hard Potterheads have attempted you must take 19 hours and 39 minutes of your 24-hour day to do it successfully.
Credit: Universal
Having a Harry Potter Movie Marathon would be the biggest way to celebrate Harry’s birthday. You get bonus points if you wear your house colors, bake a cake, and find the perfect butterbeer recipe to replicate.
These are just some of the ways you can celebrate Harry James Potter’s birthday. Some of them are easy and take very little time and some take almost your entire day. Whatever and however you decide to celebrate I hope your day is filled with a little extra magic. Mischief Managed.
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