Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
As we prepare for Christmas in the most non-traditional year of our lives, I have found myself remembering holidays from the past. Perhaps you have, too.
I’ve come back several times to an event that we participated in most of my growing up years: the December “candle burning” hosted by my Aunt Blanche and Uncle Jack.
(In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m betting that Aunt Blanche did the heavy lifting on this event, but Uncle Jack was always a willing and gracious participant.)
I thought everyone had candle burnings until I started asking around and doing some internet searches. I came up empty-handed in both.
Here’s what a candle burning was:
On a December afternoon — probably a Saturday or Sunday — my aunt and uncle opened their home on South Globe Street in Portales for a couple of hours and invited their friends and family to come and go “while the candle burns.”
I can’t remember if there were written invitations, but that phrase — “while the candle burns” — is etched in my memory.
The candle was a mighty pillar that was set up next to a thick album we called the Christmas book. The album served as a repository for photos received that year and included a sign-in sheet for each candle burning. An important part of the ritual was signing the Christmas book.
Aunt Blanche’s dining table was set up nearby with a sparkling array of holiday treats, like fruit cake and homemade divinity.
Dual punch bowls were filled with spiked and unspiked eggnog, according to my older-than-me-by-a-few-years distant-cousin-by-marriage, Karen Slaten Vardeman.
Karen says she believes it was Blanche’s mother, Janet Slaten, who started the candle burning tradition, and that Aunt Blanche continued to use “Mom” Slaten’s original candle until it grew too short to light.
The Christmas book was what we all loved the most.
A cumulative collection of signatures and photos and memories, “The Christmas book records the long flow of years,” Uncle Jack wrote once.
He turned to it regularly as an important reference for the 43 Christmases he shared with my Aunt Blanche.
In the treasured pages of the Christmas book, we could find photos of the grandparents we never knew, note our arrivals as new babies, recall the names of unexpected drop-in visitors and former neighbors.
We siblings and cousins could see our preschool scribbles evolve to crooked printing, and we could relive the pride of carefully penning that first cursive signature in the Christmas book.
We could remember sad times that our family had shared and loved ones we had lost.
We could revisit joyous occasions when the stars aligned and our far-flung extended families were together for loud, boisterous visits, complete with family photos in front of the fireplace.
Ironically, only a year ago I had spoken with a dear friend about candle-burnings and how much I treasured those memories.
We agreed that this Christmas … Christmas of 2020 … would be a fine time to revive that tradition.
And then. Well. You know.
But come Christmas Day — even though I will be able to count on one hand (and have leftover fingers) the people with whom I am gathering — I fully intend to light a candle for a couple of hours in the afternoon.
I will be remembering friends, family members, and Christmases past. I will be dreaming of Christmases yet to come.
I’m not much for fruit cake or divinity, and never developed a taste for eggnog.
But I think there might be a cup of hot cocoa and a cookie or two, to be savored slowly and sweetly.
While the candle burns.
Betty Williamson wishes you the light and warmth of the Christmas candle. Reach her at:
