Christmas parties

What the ninety minutes look like

We arrive an hour before and turn whatever room you have given us into a winter potion classroom. The long bench, the cast-iron cauldrons at every place, the apothecary bottles, and then the Christmas layer on top: pine and holly down the middle, snowflakes across the cloth, candles and fairy lights doing most of the work.

Then the children come in, and it goes like this.

Christmas Potions, filled with pure holiday cheer.

Look at your cast-iron cauldrons. They are ready for some winter magic. Grab your potion-mixing bottles. We are adding our favourite festive items, like shimmering snowflakes and flying reindeer dust! Once your bottles are filled with holiday cheer, raise your wands high. We are going to cast a loud, joyful spell together to release the Christmas magic.

Bring holiday cheer for all to hear, let the Christmas spirit now appear!

Cloaks first. Each child gets a cloak that suits them and picks a wand off the rack. It is the first photo most parents take, and it is worth letting them.

Then the brewing. Real bottles, real colour, real fizz, with the festive ingredients going in: shimmering snowflakes, flying reindeer dust, silver glitter.

Then the spell. Wands up, everyone shouting, something goes wrong on purpose so they have to fix it. This is the loudest ten minutes and the bit they talk about afterwards.

Then the Christmas potion goes in its bottle, gets named, sealed and decorated, and goes home with them. While they do that we start packing the room back down.