Journaltime

This is a place where a career, stay-at-home-work-at-home, former homeschooler, almost empty nester, rapidly passing through middle age, mom finds an outlet for the thousands of daily, unspoken words.

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Christmas stalactite

Christmas at our home is festive - lots of decorations, garlands, a plethora of snowman keep watch from the mantle above the front door, a village display and lots of candles. Christmas Eve celebration can't begin until candles are lit throughout the living and dining rooms. I'm not known for the quality of the candles - just the plentitude. And so this year once again, we lit the candles, among them a lovely red pillar candle set perfectly in a festive candle holder and placed at one end of the piano, joining the other colorful decorations. The evening began with our traditional fondu dinner, this year especially delicious as we enjoyed a new fondu sauce for the meat rather than the usual oil. This type of dinner takes a while and we lingered at the table for an hour and a half or so. We then made our way to the living room, enjoyed the Christmas story reading and began the process of passing out the multitudinous packages! Mindy reached beside the tree to grab a large, flat, wrapped package that happened to have "to Jeremy" on the tag and was surprised to find that it wouldn't budge from it's home alongside the piano. Perplexed, she tugged again and then took a closer look. The red pillar candle on top of the piano had burst through its side, completely overstepping the boundary of the holder and had made its way down the side of piano, eventually coming in contact with the top of the package, dripping down its length securing it to the floor in a pool of hardened wax. The formation of wax was solid from the candle itself to the floor, draped artistically over the package, forming an interesting shape much like the stalactites you see on a tour through an underground cave. We had a good laugh over it. Any lessons here anywhere? I suppose one would be to buy a better quality candle that won't pull any surprises on you. The other would be to - I don't know. Any ideas?

Oh, by the way, I still haven't scraped the wax off the floor yet! Better get going!