How did Wizards celebrate Christmas in the world of Harry Potter?

How was Christmas celebrated in the world of Harry Potter? Was it very different from us Muggles? Or just the same but with a twist of magical wonder.

Within the Harry Potter franchise, it is obvious that Christmas is celebrated in the Wizarding world. Hogwarts has Christmas holidays, there is a Christmas decoration, Christmas feast and perhaps most tantalizingly Christmas presents. If wizards are magical most of the time, then it holds that at the special time of Christmas they should go all out!

Hogwarts has elaborate decorations that are mentioned in detail in the books. The Philosophers Stone notes that ornaments are put up by the Hogwarts staff in extravagant fashion.

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As the book mentions, “The hall looked spectacular. Festoons of holly and mistletoe hung all around the walls, and no less than twelve towering Christmas trees stood around the room, some sparkling with tiny icicles, some glittering with hundreds of candles”. In the following books, the impressive Christmas decor is also mentioned as well.

The Chamber of Secrets recounts how there was “enchanted snow” as well as “thick streamers of holly and mistletoe” and as many Christmas trees as in the previous books. In the following books, Christmas remains important as well. Even during the Half-Blood Prince when the world seems to be at its darkest and when Voldemort is ascending to power, Christmas decoration traditions are continued as colorful as before.

The Christmas feasts are maintained throughout the books as well. The dinner is rich and elaborate with the Philosopher’s Stone mentioning a “hundred fat, roast turkeys; mountains of roast and boiled potatoes”. There are crackers as well, which pack a punch equivalent to gunpowder and creating a blue-tinted mist. Although some tension is caused in the later books by the Christmas feast being created through House-elf labor, once Hermione comes to understand that the house elves get fulfillment out of this, Christmas goes on as normal.

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Christmas presents come in a wide variety. One would wonder what could anyone get for a wizard at Christmas? But as the books reveal gifts are just as much a part of the wizarding world as ours. Shops such as Honeydukes are ideal for gifts, with Hermione getting her parents “Toothflossing Stringmints” particularly relevant giving her father’s occupation as a dentist. Christmas gifts are a rich part of the wizarding culture, that is except if you’re a death eater where the only gift you get from Lord Voldemort is to not be killed right away.

Gifts have also been key themes of the books, it is for Christmas that Harry gets a Firebolt which enables him to continue playing Quidditch at a top level and which is the first contact that Sirius Black is able to make with him after. Yet, it is often those gifts that cannot be bought by galleons that are the most valuable Christmas presents in Harry Potter.

There are two big examples of this. The first is in the Philosopher’s Stone when Harry gets an invisibility cloak for Christmas from Dumbledore. Although it is not revealed as such in the first book, having one of the Deathly Hallows makes for quite a nice Christmas present!

The second is in the Prisoner of Azkaban when Fred and George give Harry the Marauders Map as an “early Christmas Present”. Both of these are key devices in the plots of the respective books. The cloak allows Harry to navigate Hogwarts more easily and evade Filch, while listening into Quirrel’s tense exchange with Snape. The Map meanwhile is what allowed Harry to discover that Peter Pettigrew is still alive, stopping Voldemort’s servant from spying on them under the guise of Scabbers.

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The Cloak and Map were extra important because they came from Dumbledore and the Weasley Twins, people who deeply cared about Harry. Just like in our own world some of the most valuable gifts are not because of what they cost in money but because of whom they are from. Malfoy’s family might have been richer financially than say the Weasley’s, but the Weasley’s gifts they gave each other no doubt meant a lot more to them because they came from greater love.

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