I have never had any interest in braving the crowds for Black Friday shopping. For me, the day after Thanksgiving is the day to hang around the house, maybe catch up on grading, contemplate creative uses for Thanksgiving leftovers and start decorating the house for Christmas. This includes setting up my tabletop tree with all of the Harry Potter ornaments I have accumulated over the years. Hallmark keeps coming out with more each year; eventually I am going to need to get a bigger tree. Here are a few pictures of additions made to my collection since I first posted on this topic.
I have acquired quite a few buildings, most recently Hogwarts itself and Honeydukes Sweets. Olivander’s and Gringotts have been around longer. I have started setting all the buildings, except for the castle, which is scaled much smaller, up around the base of the tree in some fake snow in the style of a Christmas Village. The Honeydukes is especially festive, with the snow-covered roof. Note to self: purchase some battery-operated lights to light them up.
Ornaments acquired in the last few years include the first Fantastic Beasts addition, the Niffler in the suitcase, and the first in a series of 3D book covers. I only wish it said “Philosopher’s Stone” instead of “Sorcerer’s.” There’s also one of Snape drilling Harry in his first potions class (another that plays dialogue from the movie) and, perhaps my favorite from an artistic perspective, one with Dumbledore and Harry exploring memories in the Pensieve.
Of course, like a lot of Hogpro writers, I am hoping the Cormoran Strike series will become popular enough to merit such merchandising tie-ins. Can you imagine the holiday scenes? Lula Lovegood’s body in the snow? The near-collision on the snowy highway? Strike punching Whitaker in the gut? A yapping Norfolk terrier with a chorus of “Shut up, Rattenbury!”? The possibilities are endless.
Dr. Freeman,
On the topic of Christmas ornaments, your post is rather serendipitous. You mention those model Villages, and it’s just now that I wonder why it never occurred to me that someone would sooner or later try and do for the Wizarding World what’s been done for both Dickens’s London and Rockwell’s Americana. In that sense, Hogwarts does sound like just the next logical step. With any luck, one day Middle Earth will also join in that line, possibly followed by Alice’s Wonderland and Peter Pan’s Neverland? A Christmas fan can dream.
As for Strike’s setting as a Christmas Village….Ummm, I’m not that sure. No offense. When I think of Strike’s London, all the black and white film noir settings I recall watching as a kid (does anyone recall Humphrey Bogart?), or else it’s the fogged out setting of Margery Allingham’s “Tiger in the Smoke”. The trick is that while each of these scenarios is dripping with atmosphere, I’m not sure how Holiday or kid friendly they could be.
I suppose it could work if, say, you introduced a minor variation on this theme. For starters, you could mix Robin and Strike in with the more Victorian setting of Conan Doyle’s Baker Street, mixed in the the typical Dickensian setting. Another option would be to mix and match all the great British literary sleuths into a great big Christmas diorama, so that Strike would rub shoulders with Poirot. Meanwhile Robin could be having tea with Ms. Marple. That kind of deal. Again, who knows?
What I do know is that just the other day, I was thinking over what would happen if you could find a way to make Christmas Tree owners stop and think about the nature of a lot of the more classical ornaments they hang up around this time every year. I mean wouldn’t it be funny is, by some enchantment the decorations on a tree were either to come alive, or be able to transport people back to the people, places, and events that sort of gave birth to them?
For instance, what if certain ornaments delivered you into the time of St. George? Or what if it were possible that the colored bulbs were a lost reference to the traditional planetary symbolism? Better yet, what if the tree itself transported you to a vision of the Norse Yggdrasil? It could almost be like a Holiday variation of Bradbury’s “The Halloween Tree”. “Five Children and a Christmas Tree”, or something like it.
…I’ll go take my meds now….
….Shakespeare’s Renaissance. That would make a pretty good Village or system of decorations, I’ll bet!
Chris: Studio 56 jumped on the Hogwarts Express some time ago. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=harry+potter+village+department+56&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIg6jKwpyS5gIVFYeGCh2H2w12EAAYASAAEgKbV_D_BwE&hvadid=338599744767&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9008335&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=b&hvrand=13790145386330599501&hvtargid=kwd-531600298783&hydadcr=8729_10367368&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_7uvuzaay7t_b
Pottery Barn teen has some good ornaments including Fantastic Beasts they rehearsed this year.
It’s fortunate for her readers that JKR , a writer in Scotland, wrote Christmas into the holidays at Hogwarts. New Year’s Day, not Christmas (Yule), is the big holiday in Scotland, thanks to the Puritans. It was a very big, happy holiday until the Puritans made the happy part of it illegal, and I am told it never quite came back. The First Footer is the nearest thing to Santa. The First Footer was (is?) is the symbol of Good Luck for the new year (the first visitor of the year to one’s house, he brings a lump of coal, bread, money or salt — essentials for survival). I don’t know who the First Footer would be for the Weasleys; a red-head cannot be a First Footer.
Interesting, yes?