Candle glow

 

 Glowing candles are some of the most meaningful images on Christmas cards, especially the vintage ones.  The ones on the card above are a case in point.  (I really love the Christmas pastels, but that will be a post for another day.)  But just look at those glowing flames, wavering in the air, and the glittery halos around them.  So, so pretty.

This Christmas season I have been thinking a lot about candles.  As I mentioned in my Hodgepodge post at my Kitchen Table blog, one line from a Christmas tune has kept jumping out at me as I occasionally listen to our more-or-less local Christmas music station.  "I've got the candles glowing in the dark."  Times seem dark lately, do they not?  How important it is to keep the candles glowing. 

 
I may have mentioned this before, I'm not sure.  But last winter we did a lot of traveling to and from the home of friends for Bible study and a meal.  It became a very familiar route and we were usually traveling after dark at least for the trip home.  We so enjoyed seeing all of the lights glowing from people's homes.  There were lighted trees in windows, candles in windows, lights illuminating porches and outlining roofs,  lighted trees in people's yards.  One house that always caught my eye had long windows on either side of the front door, and long swathes of light spilled out onto the snow.  As the winter went on, Christmas and New Year's passed by and most people left their lights up.  It was a delight to see and I came to see it as a way of pushing back against the dark winter we had been promised.  It would only be dark if we allowed it to be!

This thought has stayed with me.  Mr. T and I need to do more with lights at our own home.  We have white lights up year-round inside in our bedroom and the living room, but I would like for us to do more, maybe with candles in the windows.  One thing we have done, even though our little camp is a very seasonal place and we won't spend much time there during the winter, is to place a lighted Christmas tree (with lights on a timer) in the loft window.  There are four windows in the living room below and, although these do not have window sills as such, Mr. T has plans to make a small temporary shelf below each one to hold an electric candle.  I will post photos if I am able to get them from the road.

 This Christmas season, as well as all through the dark winter, let's be sure our lights are glowing in the dark!