Candles in the windows

Like many people, we enjoy decorating our home for Christmas. This includes putting candles in the windows, a practice that was started long, long ago, in 1934 in Colonial Williamsburg. Really. When Williamsburg reopened after restoration, historians were charged with decorating the buildings for Christmas in a traditional manner, which proved to be problematic because the traditional manner in which colonial Virginians celebrated the season of Christmas involved a great deal of fasting and repentance, which sounds a lot like Easter, and which does not lend itself to festive decorations.

So, based on one person's recollection of an old family tradition, candles were placed in the windows at Williamsburg. They became a big hit, and everyone put them in their own houses, especially after electric lights became available and people could stop burning their houses down. Now everyone has candles in their windows at Christmas, giving warmth and love to friends and strangers alike.

Only in our case, the candles we recently put in the windows make our home seem more suited to Halloween, because they are bright orange and exhibit a very obvious flicker, as if beckoning all the unsuspecting to see what lurks within. We bought these particular candles because a) Joe loves all things LED, and b) I have a marked tendency to accidentally knock candles with cords off the windowsill as I am opening and closing curtains. If we had had actual candles in our windows, our home would have burned down many times over.

So when we saw these candles that could turn themselves on and off at a certain time each day, AND came with suction cups so they could be securely attached to the window and not be susceptible to the clumsy among us, we bought one for every window. Joe painstakingly put them all out while I was gone, and when I came home he asked how they looked from outside.

"It looks like we have a haunted house," I said.

I had driven by the front of the house, and thought I must be mistaken about it being our house, because there were orange things shining out of the first floor window that I knew did not belong to us. I immediately thought it must be the new neighbors' house, and mentally chastised them for introducing such unsightly window decorations into the neighborhood.

"I bought some LED tea lights, too," Joe said in explanation.

I mentally apologized to the new neighbors.

The orange candles were short-lived, and now lie neatly packed away in their original packaging ready to go back to the store. We are confident, however, that, like the historians at Williamsburg, we will ultimately be successful in our quest to decorate our home for the holidays, however historically inaccurately.