Camp Hogwarts, anyone? Use this meal theme to add a little magic to your session.

The main purpose of this camp meal theme is to transform your camp’s mess hall into the “Great Hall” from Harry Potter. You can decorate your hall to look magical with some fun decor and food. However, this camp meal theme is not just fun because of the Harry Potter characteristics; it’s also fun if you want to use it for competition purposes – you can divide your camp into four “houses” for a competition and award (or deduct!) points throughout the night!

The best part about this camp meal theme is that you could make it as elaborate as you want, or as simple as you want. If you want to keep things simple, all you need to do is arrange your dining hall into four long tables. If you want to make it more elaborate, feel free to add some decorations, make each table a Harry Potter themed house, and encourage campers and counselors to dress up.

• Harry Potter food
  • Shepherd’s pie
  • Turkey leg
  • Roasted nuts
  • Butterbeer
  • Honeydukes Candy Bar – if you can’t get your hand on official Harry Potter themed candies (like a chocolate frog or Bertie Bott’s Beans), no worries. It’s still fun with some regular candy and just add Harry Potter themed signs. For example, label jelly beans as Bertie Bott’s, Red Vine licorice as “magic wands”, Kinder or chocolate egg as “dragon eggs”, and so on.
• Harry Potter decorations
  • Floating candles – hang LED lights from the ceiling with fishing line to make them appear to be floating. Hang the candles themselves (we recommend fake, battery-powered candles, of course), or place small tea lights in transparent globes and hang those.
  • Floating mail – similar to the candles above, tape envelopes to a few strings of invisible fishing line and string across your mess hall
  • Hanging fire torches (if your camp allows) and/or hanging black cauldrons with dry ice to create a smoke effect.
  • Flags – hang flags vertically across the dining hall. Bonus – have each cabin group make their own flag.
  • Goblets – serve your food and drinks out of golden goblets
• Harry Potter costumes
  • Time for campers to get creative!
  • Clothing – black robes, scarves, ties with white shirts and/or sweater vests
  • Accessories – glasses, fake scar, broom, maybe even a pet owl!

Step 1 – Instruct your campers about the camp meal theme so they can prepare costumes and a cabin flag. Or, place your cabin groups into four “houses”, and each house makes their own flag.

Step 2 – Decorate the mess hall by arranging the tables into four long rows, hang the floating objects (candles, mail, etc.), and set up the tables with goblets, plates, silverware, fruit bowls, etc.

Step 3 – The magic begins!