Welcome back to Blogmas 2025, my annual series of holiday-themed blog posts that runs every day through Christmas. This year, I’ve enlisted the help of AI to generate daily writing prompts, which has led to some interesting creative challenges and unexpected topics. Today’s prompt for December 19th asks a deeply personal question: If you could spend Christmas in any fictional world (Narnia, Hogwarts, Middle-earth, etc.), where would you choose and why?

I’ll be honest—this question didn’t require much deliberation. While there are countless fictional worlds that have captured my imagination over the years, when it comes to Christmas, I’d choose Hogwarts without hesitation. And before you roll your eyes at the predictability of that choice, let me explain why this particular magical castle speaks to something I’ve been missing for far too long.

The Lost Magic of Christmas

Here’s the thing about being an adult at Christmas: somewhere along the way, the magic just… evaporates. I’m not talking about the joy of giving gifts or the warmth of family gatherings—those things remain wonderful. I’m talking about that specific brand of magic that made you lie awake on Christmas Eve, absolutely certain you could hear sleigh bells in the distance. The kind that made ordinary lights seem to glow with otherworldly brilliance. The kind that transformed the world into something more than it was the other 364 days of the year.

I haven’t felt that magic in a long time. Years, really. Maybe decades.

But imagine—just imagine—spending Christmas in a place where magic isn’t a metaphor. Where it’s not something you have to squint to see or convince yourself to believe in. At Hogwarts, magic is as real as gravity, as tangible as the snow falling on the castle grounds. The enchantment isn’t something you have to manufacture or maintain through sheer force of nostalgia. It simply is.

Christmas at Hogwarts: Where Wonder Lives

Picture walking into the Great Hall on Christmas morning. The ceiling, bewitched to look like the sky outside, shows gentle snowfall that never quite reaches your head. Twelve enormous Christmas trees tower along the walls, not just decorated but genuinely enchanted—the fairy lights are actual fairies, the ornaments dance and spin of their own accord, and the star on top of each tree pulses with real starlight. The suits of armor have been charmed to sing carols (badly, according to the books, which somehow makes it even better).

This isn’t the forced cheer of a shopping mall Santa or the desperate attempt to recapture childhood through Instagram-perfect decorations. This is Christmas as we imagined it when we were seven years old, when we genuinely believed that anything could happen on December 25th.

The feast itself would be legendary—not because of some Michelin-star preparation, but because house-elves who genuinely love their work have poured actual magic into every dish. Wizard crackers that explode into live white mice and rear admirals’ hats. Puddings that actually flame without anyone having to douse them in brandy and fumble with matches. And everywhere, everywhere, the casual impossibility of a world where wonder is woven into the very fabric of reality.

The Community of Misfits

But it’s not just the magical trappings that draw me to a Hogwarts Christmas. If you remember the books, the students who stay at Hogwarts for the holidays are usually the ones who don’t quite fit elsewhere—Harry, who had no real home to return to; foreign students far from their families; the forgotten and the lonely who find more warmth in a drafty castle than in their own houses.

There’s something profoundly moving about that. Christmas at Hogwarts isn’t about picture-perfect families or maintaining traditions that have lost their meaning. It’s about found family, about creating joy in unexpected places, about discovering that sometimes the best celebrations are the ones you never planned.

I think about Harry’s first real Christmas, when he received presents for perhaps the first time in his memory. The wonder wasn’t just in the magical objects—the invisibility cloak, the hand-knitted sweater from Mrs. Weasley—but in the revelation that he was remembered, that he belonged somewhere, that he mattered to people. That’s a different kind of magic altogether, and maybe the most powerful kind.

The Gift of Genuine Surprise

In our world, Christmas surprises are increasingly rare. We send wish lists via Amazon links. We know exactly what we’re getting because we picked it out ourselves. Even when we don’t know the specific gift, we can usually guess within a reasonable margin of error. The last time I was genuinely, completely surprised by a Christmas gift? I honestly can’t remember.

But at Hogwarts, you might receive a Remembrall that glows red when you’ve forgotten something. A Sneakoscope that spins when someone untrustworthy is near. A book that screams when you open it. These aren’t just objects; they’re impossibilities made real, things that couldn’t exist in our world no matter how much technology advances. The surprise isn’t just in receiving them—it’s in discovering what they do, how they work, what new avenue of possibility they open up.

Other Worlds I Considered

Of course, Hogwarts isn’t the only fictional world that promises a memorable Christmas. Each has its own appeal, its own particular brand of magic or wonder.

Narnia offers perhaps the most explicitly Christmas-centered experience in fantasy literature. The eternal winter finally breaking into Christmas as Aslan returns, Father Christmas himself appearing with gifts of profound significance rather than mere toys—Peter’s sword and shield, Susan’s bow and horn, Lucy’s healing cordial. There’s something deeply theological about Narnia’s Christmas, something about redemption and the return of joy after long sorrow. It would be moving, certainly, but also heavy with allegory and meaning. Sometimes you just want magic without the weight of metaphor.

Middle-earth would provide a Christmas of profound beauty and ancient tradition. I imagine celebrating in Rivendell, surrounded by ageless elves who remember Christmases from centuries past, or in the Shire, where the hobbits would undoubtedly throw seven meals’ worth of celebration and enough fireworks to light the entire sky. But Middle-earth’s magic is subtle, woven into its very bones rather than sparkling on the surface. It’s the difference between finding a perfect walking stick and having a wand that shoots fireworks.

Oz (the original L. Frank Baum version, not the Hollywood glamor) would be delightfully bizarre—a Christmas where the trees might grow ornaments naturally, where the snow might be made of popcorn, where logic takes a holiday along with everyone else. The complete unpredictability appeals to me, the sense that normal rules simply don’t apply. But Oz can be almost too whimsical, too untethered from any emotional reality.

And then there’s the world of Stephen King—Castle Rock or Derry—where Christmas would be tinged with something darker. The lights would flicker ominously. The Santa at the mall would have eyes that lingered too long. There would be something ancient and hungry lurking beneath the enforced cheer. As someone who just spent months analyzing King’s moral universe, I understand the appeal of that darkness, the way it makes the light seem brighter by contrast. But for Christmas? No. I’ve had enough of finding the shadows in things. Sometimes you just want the light.

Why Hogwarts Wins

In the end, Hogwarts offers something none of these other worlds quite capture: magic that feels both wondrous and lived-in. It’s not the distant, ethereal magic of elves or the philosophical magic of Aslan. It’s not the anything-goes chaos of Oz or the lurking dread of King’s Maine. It’s magic as we imagined it as children—immediate, tactile, slightly dangerous, and absolutely everywhere.

But more than that, Hogwarts offers the chance to feel like a child again without the condescension that usually comes with that phrase. You wouldn’t be pretending to believe in magic or trying to see the world through younger eyes. You would simply be in a world where those younger eyes were right all along, where the wardrobe might really lead somewhere, where the stairs might really move when you’re not looking, where Christmas magic isn’t a metaphor or a memory but a daily reality.

The Real Magic

I suppose what I’m really saying is that I miss believing in impossible things. Not in a religious sense—that’s a different conversation entirely. I miss the kind of belief that didn’t require evidence or explanation, the kind that existed simply because the world seemed too vast and mysterious to contain only the things we could see and measure.

Christmas at Hogwarts wouldn’t just be about experiencing magic. It would be about remembering what it felt like when magic didn’t seem impossible, when the line between real and imaginary was blurrier, when a strange sound in the night might really be reindeer on the roof rather than the house settling.

We lose something precious when we stop believing in the impossible. We gain a lot too—reason, logic, the ability to navigate the real world without constantly being disappointed. But at Christmas, especially, I feel the weight of what we’ve lost. The magical world of Hogwarts offers something our world can’t: the chance to live, even briefly, in a reality where wonder isn’t something you have to work for or imagine or remember. It just is.

And maybe that’s what I really want for Christmas—not presents or parties or even family gatherings, wonderful as those can be. I want to live in a world where magic is real, where surprise is still possible, where the ordinary rules don’t apply. I want to walk through halls lit by floating candles, to receive gifts that shouldn’t exist, to eat at tables where the food appears from nowhere and the crackers explode into living things.

I want, just once more, to experience Christmas the way I did when I was young enough to believe that anything could happen on December 25th.

Because in Hogwarts, it actually could.

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So where would you spend your fictional Christmas? Would you join me at Hogwarts for a properly magical holiday, or would you choose somewhere else entirely? Maybe you’d prefer the cozy comfort of the Shire or the eternal party of Oz? Let me know in the comments below—I’d love to hear which fictional world calls to you when the snow starts falling and the lights start twinkling.