For Harry Potter, in the series of the same name, Hogwarts is his true home. The Christmas holidays are the perfect encapsulation of that feeling of being safe. The early films of the series keep the tone light, while later films age the tone as the characters do. Therefore, some of Harry's Christmases are darker or sadder than others.
However, good things happen to Harry around Christmastime, as well as complicated and sad things. For example, Arthur Weasley's attack by a snake happens just before the break in the fifth year. Therefore, here are ten moments around the winter holidays in the Harry Potter series.
Harry's first Hogwarts Christmas is full of joy. Harry is surprised to find any presents for him under the tree, and the feast and the Christmas crackers that follow are a delight. The Weasley twins mix up their Christmas sweaters and steal Percy's prefect badge, and overall the day is full of silliness. It's the perfect epitome of early Harry Potter lightness. Harry also receives his invisibility cloak for Christmas from an anonymous source (later revealed to be Dumbledore), which allows him to sneak around Hogwarts for the next several years.
Over Christmas during his fifth year, Harry is filled with doubt and confusion about his connection to Voldemort considering the recent attack on Arthur Weasley and how he saw it through the shared vision. Before the group leaves to go back to school, Sirius pulls Harry aside to both reassure him and give him a Christmas gift. What casts a pall on this good moment is that Harry doesn't open the gift until after Sirius has died, meaning he doesn't know it is a communication mirror, which he could have used to ensure Sirius wasn't actually in the Ministry like Harry thought he was, and therefore wouldn't have died.
The films experiment more with magic in the background as the series goes on, and Christmastime in Order of the Phoenix is a perfect version of it. Once Arthur is presumably out of the hospital, he celebrates Christmas at Grimmauld Place with family, and there are several lightly magical objects on the table.
After Christmas during his first year, Harry goes to the library at night with his invisibility cloak, looking for information on Nicholas Flamel. When Filch almost catches him, he ends up running down the corridors and wanders into a random room that happens to hold the mirror of Erised.
This mirror shows the deepest desires of people's hearts, and so Harry ends up seeing his family, whom he has never seen before in his life.
When Harry and Hermione are searching for Horcruxes after Ron leaves during what should have been their seventh and final year of school, they end up in Godric's Hollow on Christmas Eve, as Hermione correctly deduces. The pair go to find Harry's parents' graves in the cemetery, and Hermione leaves a wreath for the Potters.
In the trio's second year, they believe Draco Malfoy is the Heir of Slytherin, and therefore decide to use Polyjuice potion to eavesdrop on him and try to figure out what he's planning. On Christmas Day, Hermione finishes brewing the Polyjuice, which is a momentous occasion in their year and the mystery at hand.
Harry receives a Firebolt, the newest version of a broomstick, during Christmas of his third year. Since there is no indication of who it came from (unlike in the film), Hermione gets suspicious and tells Professor McGonagall, who confiscates it to run a spell-check over it. This causes a fight between the three friends that lasts for several weeks, until after McGonagall returns the broom.
During the Triwizard tournament, the main event of the holidays is the Yule Ball on Christmas night. Sadly, for Ron, Harry, and Hermione, the night ends in tears.
Ron and Harry invite the Patil twins, and none of them particularly have a good time. Hermione attends with Viktor Krum, but after Ron gets jealous, she storms off, angry, with her night ruined too.
Harry and Ron go to the Burrow for the holidays during their sixth year, but Hermione goes home. On Christmas, Mrs. Weasley becomes overwhelmed when she realizes that Percy has come home, though that abruptly deflates after everyone realizes that he is only there with the Minister, Rufus Scrimgeour, who is attempting to get Harry onto the Ministry's side for the upcoming war. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't succeed as Harry proves himself to be "Dumbledore's man, through and through."
During the first book, playing in the snow is mentioned much more often than later in the series. The Weasley twins in particular are noted for trying to bewitch snowballs to bounce off the back of Professor Quirinius Quirrell's turban. What makes this action even better is that at the end of the novel, the reader (and Harry) learns that Voldemort lives on the back of Quirrell's head, under the turban. Therefore, the Weasley twins are really hitting Voldemort with snowballs.
