We are finally joining the trend and hosting a Harry Potter party this weekend, as a sort of early Halloween celebration. D and I have had a grand time shopping for decorations and favors and figuring out just how much junk food thirty 'tweens can consume in four hours. We have cauldrons full of candy and glow-in-the-dark necklaces and temporary tattoos and plastic Harry glasses, and games and puzzles and plans for a costume contest...
Of course, the amount of fun we're having planning this makes me worry. (Because it wouldn't be me if I didn't.) If we're enjoying this, are the kids going to? Or are we going to have thirty sulky twelve-year-olds stuck in a dark room looking at a movie they're all seen twenty times, and wondering why these stupid adults won't just let them stuff their faces with pizza and then go home. And possibly making obnoxious comments from the corners and throwing popcorn at each other.
Since this is the first event we've ever done for kids in this age group, I suppose I should expect that we're going to make mistakes. But on the other hand I'm afraid that if we screw this one up we won't get another chance, because the word will go out that we're a bunch of boring old ladies without a clue. And there is so little for kids to do around here. There isn't even cow tipping, despite the vast quantity of cows, since getting to the cows requires transportation, and twelve-year-olds in the country don't have that. I want to give them a chance to have some fun, and to escape their parents the way we did when we were that age by meeting friends at the mall or the movies, and also remind them that occasionally the library can be a pretty cool place.
Which is a heck of a lot to have riding on a party involving kids in funny glasses and grown ups in really big pointy hats.
