The Halloween Feast: Making Muggle Memories

This is Molly--Molly Weasley--just jotting down a few notes about this year's Halloween feast. For Halloween this year, Arthur decided that he and I should dress up like Muggles. Arthur has always been fascinated by Muggles, as I'm sure you know. Arthur planned his own outfit, and I mostly chose my own. I do admire Muggle women their colorful clothes and unusual jewelry! At right you see Arthur consulting his work-in-progress, A Treasury of Muggle Lore, before putting the finishing touches on his costume. In particular, he'd read that American Muggles are fascinated by a game of basesnitch, and he decorated his hat for the evening with one of their teams' colors. We created our costumes the Muggle way, of course--no magic, that is--though I couldn't be separated from my wand and my Floo Powder in these troubled times of Death Eaters and other dangers. At left, you see us at the end of the evening, exhausted, when we just cast charms to shed our Muggle look and return ourselves to our true wizardly selves.

~~ Food ~~

Spanekopita and a Halloween snack mix

Pumpkin-cream cheese sandwiches (pumpkin pecan bread cut into pumpkin shapes, with gingered cream cheese and pumpkin pecan butter) and carrot dip (cumin-spiced carrot puree with garlicky yogurt and chives)

Carrot-coconut cupcakes with white chocolate cream cheese frosting, M&M blondies, chocolate pumpkin bundtlettes with chocolate ganache, cinnamon-peanut butter cheesecakes with peanut butter frosting and peanut butter M&Ms

Chocolate decorated sugar cookies, vanilla decorated sugar cookies (including puffin cookies, which I had to a) keep insisting were not, most definitely not, penguin cookies, and b) explain were the Official Bird of Halloween. I mean, hey, what else is in the running? They're a lot cuter and more appropriately-colored than owls. . . . and toucans, though their coloring is acceptable, are just too tropical for the occasion. No, puffins it is--I look forward to many more years of making annual Halloween puffin cookies!), and a chocolate decorated sugar cookie haunted house

~~ Guests ~~

Meg, the Wife of Bath, who won an honorable mention for Most Appropriate Costume, and Emil, a funny guy in a mask and Italian sweats

Suzi, Jason Varitek, who won Most Appropriate Costume on this night of Game 3 of the World Series

Wani, Mother Earth, who won Itchiest Costume because of her layers of flowers, and a scary sexy vampire, who won Hottest Costume

Sarah, a pirated video tape, who won an honorable mention for Wittiest Costume

Christine, the White Witch from C.S. Lewis, and Tim, Jack Frost, who won (respectively) an honorable mention for Witchiest Costume and the prize for (again!) Scariest Costume

Chris, a dictionary (opened, incidentally enough, to the page for the noun form of "abstract"), who along with Debbie, a thesaurus (not pictured), won Most Abstract Costume

Jef and Jin Yoon, Akma and Aquma, gnome warlock and mage, winning (in spirit) Best Warcraft Costume and (in actuality) a honorable mention for Sweetest Costume

Elan, a rather shell-shocked butterfly

Your hosts, Arthur and Molly Weasley

Dwight Shrute (center), Angela (right), and a punk rock friend (left); Dwight and Angela won the prize for Wittiest Costume and their punk friend won an honorable mention for Scariest Costume

Howard the Banana, who would have won for Most Annoying Costume, had that been a category (perhaps next year!) but who did in fact win for Sweetest Costume (perhaps due to his banana-shaking "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" dance).

Not pictured are a Mexican troubadour (Paul, honorable mention for Itchiest Costume due to his fake mustache), Marty McFly (Elise), and a doctor (Dan).

 

Note: Despite all the shape-shifting and universe-changing over the years (and the more pedestrian cross-country and crosstown moves), this year managed to be our tenth annual Halloween feast!