Lighting the Tree

We have a tradition, carried on from my childhood, of having real candles on our Christmas tree. Some people find this scary, but honestly, it is not dangerous. We cut down our own tree, two weeks or less before Christmas, keep it in water, and always get a blue spruce because it has strong branches with space between the branch layers. You could hold a lighted candle to one of the branches, and it would not burn. As we all know from campfires, it's hard to burn green wood!

Sometimes I don't want to do this --getting the little candle holders to clip on in the correct places, and then trying to get all the candles straight, can be a royal pain. But now that Emma is used to it, she won't let us go a year without it. And it is magic when the candles are lit, so I'm always grateful that we put in the time.

The candles are only lit when we are here, paying attention. It's a quiet, restful, time. Last night was the first time we lit the candles, and in addition to singing a few carols, Emma read "Twas the Night Before Christmas". It's very difficult to capture in a photo, so last night I tried a short video. I think this does capture the beauty fairly well, although you can only barely hear Emma as she reads.