Just like every year, I have a Harry Potter Christmas tree π it goes up in our bedroom.
So here it is in all its glory! Super happy with it again this year. Loving the addition of the floating candles too π
I love the coloured lights and that they are the Hogwarts house colours. I also have some star lights around our curtains (also Hogwarts house colours)
It looks super magical in our room, I love it.
The Sorting Hat works so well as a tree topper too!
This is always one of my favourite posts to do for Blogmas! Anyone who knows me or has followed me on here will know that me and my twin sister are big Harry Potter fans, so this is of course one of my favourite parts of decorating…
The Harry Potter Christmas tree.
I have collected quite a few different Harry Potter tree decs over the years, and in more recent years they have become much easier to come by with shops such as Primark selling quite a vast range each year.
I have also bought a few from our various trips to the Warner Bros tour in Watford. We went for the ‘Hogwarts in the snow’ event and it was truly magical , as was the Christmas merch in the shop.
The Harry Potter tree has a brand new location in the flat this year. We have had a lot of redecorating done and with added furniture etc it couldn’t really fit nicely in the master bedroom, so it has taken up residence in our spare room, which is basically an office (So my husband will feel very festive when he works from home, whether he likes it or not haha)
Lets take a look!
I love it!
I was so chuffed a few years ago when I found Christmas lights that were the Hogwarts house colours. I also love the way that Gryffindor house ribbons look instead of tinsel.
I do have a Harry Potter tree topper but I was unable to locate it this year so I went back to my original tree topper of my Sorting hat (which tbf looks pretty awesome)
Me, my twin sister and her family, my husband, and a couple of our friends went to the Harry Potter Warner Bros Studio Tour in Watford. This place is BRILLIANT, a must for any Harry Potter fans, I love visiting there. They had the ‘Return to Azkaban’ event on celebrating 20 years of the 3rd film – it was an awesome day out, and great to see some new parts of the tour.We celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary on the 11th of June. Tim bought me some beautiful flowers, and we went out for a lovely meal at one of our favourite Italian restaurants. To celebrate our 8th Wedding Anniversary me and my husband spent a touristy day out together in London. We started off the day at the Tower of London, we then had a boat rode on the Thames, followed by the London Eye, sightseeing, and a comedy show in the evening. It was a brilliant and super fun day out. For Fathers Day, we went to Felixstowe for a day in the sunshine. We had a nice walk along the prom and a go on the ferris wheel with Dad.We enjoyed dinner at ours, a nice sunset walk and games with my mother in law.We celebrated my Dad’s 70th birthday with a family meal, with the cake I made for dessert… followed by a day on the Mid Norfolk railway π€
I thought that I would share with you one of my favourite Christmas decorations …
My Harry Potter themed Christmas tree.
I themed the tree around the colours of my favourite Hogwarts house – Gryffindor.
First, I started off by wrapping the tree with red and gold tinsel.
Next, I added the hand tied Gryffindor ribbons.
Then, I arranged all of my different Harry Potter baubles.
I have quite a few now as Primark have done some lovely sets over the last few years.
I also picked up a few amazing Gryffindor themed decorations at the studio tour in Watford.
I predominantly place my red and gold Gryffindor baubles as well as my general Harry Potter baubles, around the front of the tree. The others go around the other side to even it out.
Finally, I add my tree topper!
This year, I went for my sorting hat. I do have a Harry Potter Hogwarts Crest topper, but I could not find it in our storage unit (sad times)
The Sorting Hat looks so effective up there, it makes a brilliant topper.
I am really happy with how the tree came out this year.
I do think that I need to have my coloured fairy lights on the tree next year, just to enhance it a little and make it stand out… especially as I have a set that are red, yellow, blue, and green, which are the Hogwarts house colours.
Top tip 1: If you’d like to do your own Harry Potter tree but you can’t find any baubles for sale, then you could do what I did the first year I had one… use your Harry Potter Memorabilia to deocarte your tree ie Hogwarts train tickets, Yule Ball programme etc
Top tip 2: Buy some baubles that are the colours you want to represent on your Harry Potter tree (ie Red & Gold for Gryffindor, Silver and Green for Slytherin) You could hang them as they are or decorate them yourself to make them themed baubles.
And today I am going to show you which Advent Calendars I have this year. I’ve got a nice variety with a last minute addition.
Let’s take a look!
Up first, my chocolate advent calendar…
I got out my Harry Potter pocket advent calendar, this one you fill yourself.
I got me and my husband chocolate coins for each day.
It has 24 pockets, so I’ve put extra in for the 25th as I like yo have one for Christmas morning too.
Next up, I have my beautiful Pop up Harry Potter advent calendar. I bought this either last year or two years ago (I can’t remember)
It is so cool – and it’s great that you can refuse it!
I love the little decorations you get each day, to hang on the tree!
My final advent calendar is a F.R.I.E.N.D.S themed one. This was an unexpected one, but I couldn’t resist it. A bonus was that it was in a sale at my local bookshop, so it was a bargain.
This one comes with cool little F.R.I.E.N.D.S themed goodies such as decorations, bookmarks, puzzles (& I’m not sure what else yet!)
It’s fun to have a few different ones to open each morning!
First stop, airport breakfast. Are you even going away if you don’t have one?!?
We flew quite early on our first day (half a good idea as you get a whole day, half a bad idea as we were knackered and needed a nap before dinner)
Once we had landed we got the tram from the airport to the town centre, which was cool.
We then found our accommodation, left our bags and headed out to look around and book a tour. We had been hoping to book the tour that day as we had prebooked some others, unfortunately there were no slots available so we booked it for the second day.
We had a little bit more of a look around. The architecture and city centre are amazing, its such a beautiful place.
We found this awesome place for some lunch. How cool is it!! Bats are my favourite animal so I fell in love with this place immediately. It was really quirky and unique inside too, I love finding independent places like this.
Once we had enjoyed our food we wandered back to our accommodation as we could now check in. Hubby listened to the football whilst I had a nap as I was knackered thanks to the end of term/early start. It was much needed.
We got up and ready for the evening and went to a delicious Italian (our favourite) which we had spotted earlier.
We just had a chilled evening as we were both travel tired and wanted to be ready and raring for the next few days.
A brilliant start to the trip!
D A Y β’ T W O
For our second day, we headed back down to the Royal Mile for our first tour of the day.
Our first tour was called ‘The Real Mary Kings Close’. It is an hour long guided tour where you learn all about the history of the different closes and the people who lived there. Our guide was brilliant in character and really funny, which made the experience that bit more fun too.
After the tour, we hung around the Royal Mile for a bit, had some lunch and a drink before our second tour.
Our second tour was a history of the old town. It was so interesting and really cool learning about the different buildings all around the Royal Mile and their significance in the growth and development of Edinburgh.
We were shown the ‘only official’ Harry Potter merchandise shop on our tour, so at the end of it, we queued up (yep, it’s so popular you have to queue) and we went in. It was so cool, the decor is insane! And there’s so much cool merchandise.
We rounded off the evening with ‘The Best Fish & Chips in Edinburgh’ which tbf were pretty delicious. I even tried a battered Mars bar, which was really yummy.
D A Y β’ T H R E E
We enjoyed a yummy breakfast at our ‘hub’ Accommodation before walking the length of the Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace.
I always loved the Queen, so it was cool to see Holyrood Palace and its grounds. We didn’t have time to go in, which was a shame, but it was a lovely day, so we went for a walk through the garden and admired it from the outside.
We also had a look around the Scottish Parliment building, which was interesting, too. You had to go through proper airport style security to get in, which was a bit mad (but understandable).
We then walked all the way back up the Royal Mile to Haymarket station where we met my Uncle.
He lives in a different part of Scotland, so we arranged to meet up with him for a day while we were close by. We took the bus together and went to Edinburgh Zoo.
It was an unprecedented hot day in Edinburgh, and everyone had obviously decided to do the same as us and visit the zoo… the queue was mad, but we got in eventually, and we had a lovely day.
It is such a lovely zoo and a really good variety of animals, some which they don’t have in our local zoo.
We especially enjoyed seeing the different types of penguins (the King penguins are amazing!) and the Gentoo penguins, as well as the Sun Bears, Sloths, and most incredible of all, the Giant Panda!!
That is an animal I never thought I would actually see, and it was so cute.
We rounded off a brilliant day with a delicious Italian before we headed back to our respective homes. It was one of my favourite days of the holiday and it was great to catch up.
D A Y β’ F O U R
For our penultimate day, we had an earlier start. Again, we enjoyed a hotel breakfast before heading back to the Royal Mile for our Harry Potter tour!!! Exciting β‘οΈ
Here is a little rundown of some of the cool things that we saw…
Harry Potter Walking Tour β‘οΈπ΄σ §σ ’σ ³σ £σ ΄σ Ώ
1. Outside The Elephant House Cafe where JK often wrote βοΈπΌ 2. Sorted into our houses at the start of the tour π 3. Tom Riddles grave πͺ¦ 4. Hogwarts inspo for the exterior, houses & alot of interiors eg Great Hall π° 5. Victoria Street, the inspiration for Diagon Alley πͺ 6. Outside the shop that is believed to have inspired Flourish & Blotts Bookshop π 7. Bank of Scotland, inspo for Gringotts 8. The Balmoral Hotel where JK finished writing the last ever Harry Potter book β‘οΈπ 9. On the Royal Mile, the main body of this monument inspired parts of the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets π 10. JK Rowling’s Handprints on Edinburghs very own ‘Walk of Fame’ ππΌβ¨οΈ
Once we had some lunch, we headed to the National Museum of Scotland. They had a Doctor Who exhibition that we wanted to look around.
It was really good, we enjoyed looking around the exhibits.
We even went inside a Dalek!
We had a brief look around some of the animal areas of the museum before we headed back for a chill before dinner.
We went back to our favourite Italian ‘Pomo’ one last time for some delicious food.
I had been eyeing up the frozen Raspberry Daiquiri all week, so I decided to have one ok our last night… it was amazing.
We then headed back to the lovely bar we visited earlier in the week – The Hanging Bat π¦ we got a cocktail each to round of the evening.
D A Y β’ F I V E
Our final day!
We went out for breakfast at a little cafe before heading to the Royal Mile one last time.
We went to the Writers Musuem, where they have rooms all about three famous Socttish writers; Robert Louie Stevenson, Robert Burns, and Sir Walter Scott.
We then walked down to the new town and had a look around, had a drink,and even got to get right up close to ‘The Balmoral’ (as mentioned in the HP tour on Day 4) which was really cool.
Finally, we headed to the castle to have a closer look before we left. We didn’t get around to going in, but to be honest, there is so much to do that we could definitely visit again.
The views of Edinburgh from up by the Castle were amazing, too.
We rounded off the trip with one last lunch stop at The Hanging Bat π¦
We’re going to miss this place!
We then grabbed our things and headed off to the airport.
All in all we had a brilliant trip- Edinburgh is beautiful and we got so lucky with the weather. There is SO much to do and it would definitely be great to go back.
Being the self professed Harry Potter fan that I am, I thought I would share with you guys the Harry Potter inspired gifts that I got for Christmas.
So, lets take a look!
BOOKS!
I got three books this year. I got the illustrated version of the fifth Harry Potter book ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’. I have the others so this is a great (and a very beautiful) addition to the collection.
I also got a copy of ‘Fantastic Beasts and where to find them’ the original screenplay and the Autobiography of Tom Felton who played Draco Malfoy in the series, its called ‘Beyond the wand.’ I’m really looking forward to reading it.
I got a Harry Potter Lego set – this one is from the Chamber of Secrets film. This scene is when they are brewing the polyjuice potion and Hermione turns into a cat. This has some cool features like the changing characters and the limited edition 20th Anniversary gold Harry Potter minifigure.
I also got this ‘DIY Knight Bus Doorstop Kit’ I have no idea how I am going to make this haha but I will give it a go. I have a friend who is really good at knitting things so I may have to ask her for help.
I got this cute soup bowl from my Mum and Dad. It’s a lovely dark, midnight blue colour and is in the shape of a cauldron!
One of my friends got me this Harry Potter puzzle. The design is really nice and it incorporates all of the films, which is really cool.
I also got this really cool sock & mug set π
The final thing I got was this cosy Harry Potter throw. I can’t wait to snuggle up with this.
So every year we have two Christmas trees (because why have one when you can have two!!)
I have already posted about our regular, lounge Christmas tree but, we also have a very special Christmas tree in our bedroom…
**Drum roll***
It’s a Harry Potter themed tree!
(What a suprise π€£)
Originally I used bits of memorabilia to decorate my tree with a Sorting Hat topper, but as more and more Harry Potter stuff has become available (thanks Warner Bros and Primark!!) I have built up quite an extensive collection of baubles.
Most of them are from Primark sets but a couple are from the Studio Tour in Watford, as are the ribbons.
Without further ado, lets take a look at the different stages I went through to create my awesome Harry Potter themed tree.
First up…
Lights
They have had a little upgrade this year… but what could be more magical than star shaped fairy lights in the four house colours (nothing, exactly!)
After that…
Tinsel
I go for red and gold as although all Hogwarts Houses are represented on the tree anything like tinsel or bows are very much in a Gryffindor colour scheme.
Next…
Baubles
As I said, alot of the sets come with a bauble for each house, so all are represented… but more heavily represented are mine (Gryffindor) and my husbands (Hufflepuff) favourite houses.
I bought two new sets of baubles this year (from Primark)… the top one is from a set of four and each bauble is clear with cute, thin tinsel inside to correspond with its Hogwarts House… the tinsel also has lots of tiny little stars in it. The house emblem and name is also written on the front in the same colour font.
These are my favourites so far. They are so pretty.
I also picked up another set with four baubles. Each one says something from the series, eg: ‘Platform 9 3/4, Lumos, Forbidden Forest & Golden Snitch’
Then..
Ribbons
Gryffindor themed of course!
And Finally…
The topper
I bought this in the sale last Christmas time. I think I got it just after Christmas so it was a bargain.
This is the first year I will have used it. It looks great.
Here is the final tree! – Looking super magical if I do say so myself π
Blogmas Day Two is here, December is under way! So let’s talk Advent Calendars.
Mines varies from year to year and I am a bit partial to a regular chocolate calendar – that scrunchy metal sound as you pop through the foil to get to the chocolatey goodness is just nostalgic happiness.
As a younger child I did also have a Material Santa Advent Calendar with pockets that my Mum would fill and those kinds are super cute too and perfect for picking exactly what you want in it.
Last year I picked up my own Material Advent Calendar… and its not just any Calendar, no! It’s a Harry Potter one – Amazing.
Epic!
I love the little Hogwarts Letter Pouches with Hedwig at the top, it’s like he is delivering me a little festive treat everyday!
My husband very kindly bought me some Dairy Milk (the elite chocolate) Heroes (the elite tubs of chocolate) to go inside it, so it was nice to come home to see it filled with treats.
And now we have 25 days of waking up and eating chocolate firsr things- what a dream!
It was our 31st Birthday earlier this month and I thought I would share with you some of the cool Harry Potter bits that I got given.
Let’s go!
Some of these recipes look super cool – I do love baking so fingers crossed I can do them justice. They will be fun to try nether the less.
These two items were on my list, from my husband. The Triwizard tournment top is really cool and understated and I love that you can choose your Hogwarts house (Gryffindor ofc) and get your name on the back.
The fourth HP film is one of my faves too.
I also loved this little Niffler badge, its so pretty and cool! Plus, Nifflers are adorable.
Have you seen the new Fantastic Beasts film?? It’s great!!
I also got this cool illustrated copy of the book ‘The Tales of Beedle the Bard’. I love these illustrated versions, they are such a cool item to add to my collection.
The illustrations are beautiful and I find them way more interesting to read than the originals now π
And finally, I got a really cool Hogwarts house towel. This is ideal for when I go swimming at my local pool.
Fun Fact: My Hogwarts House on Pottermore, last time I did the quiz, was Ravenclaw.
Roseanne Byford 