Ninja Stars and Candles – Remix #176. Giving open flames to kids on Christmas Eve.
Dec 11th by JonImagine if one night a year, your church held a special service and when you walked in, they gave you a Ninja Throwing Star. That would be a nightmare right? Just throwing stars stuck in hymnals and Bibles and legs as far as the eye could see. It would be a bloody mess. But it’s not that different from what a lot of churches do on Christmas Eve when they give everyone hand flames.
Singing a few songs by candlelight is honestly a really beautiful experience, but it’s also funny. The other 364 days of the year, parents work diligently to keep their children away from torches. We put covers on our electrical outlets, hide matches and lighters in hard to reach places and yell if they get anywhere near a hot oven. But on Christmas Eve, it’s fire time.
Here are a few ways to multiply the fun of having a lit Christmas candle in a church setting:
1. Pretend it’s the Olympic Torch.
I’ve always admired the guy that demands to be the last person clapping in church. While the rest of the congregation has gone quiet, he throws in one more clap, as if to say, “There, I put the punctuation on that clapping session. Done and done.” But that guy has nothing on “last man standing” during Christmas Eve service. See how long you can keep that candle lit. Pretend it’s the Olympic Torch. Be the last one standing in the aisle with a proud flame of “refuse to blow this candle out” while everyone else is gathering their coats. If someone asks you to blow it out, say, “We’re out of fire at home, I need to save this.”
2. Get the “Christmas Eve Service Candle” App for your iPhone and hold that up instead.
I don’t know if they have this yet for the iPhone but if they don’t, you’re welcome, I just made someone a billion dollars. Think about it, they already have DVDs that make it look like there’s a beautiful fire blazing in a fireplace on your television. Why not an application that flickers and shimmers like a church Christmas Eve service candle? Then, instead of a fire hazard, you could hold up your iPhone and sing by the light of your app. That’s even better than Festivus.
3. Blow out other people’s candles.
I don’t think I have to explain this one, but I promise, it is delightful. My brothers and I turned this into an art, because you can’t just come on out and blow it. You have to do this weird, breathe out of the side of your face, move in which you send a gust of wind with the accuracy of a sniper at someone else’s candle.
4. Play with the wax.
In addition to melting your candle on the shoes of family members, it’s also fun to see how long you can get the wax without it breaking off. You have to hold it at the right angle though. It has to be tilted enough to make it all pool like one of those stilagtitesdifficulttospellcorrectly things in caves but not so tilted that the weight of the wax breaks it off.
5. Try to keep the candle.
As soon as that last song is finished, it’s like the spell that convinced your parents it was OK for you to have fire in church is broken. And it’s nearly impossible to keep the candle. Trick #1 was about keeping the fire, which sounds like a song Patrick Swayze sang in the 80s. I’m talking about keeping the actual candle. I never actually executed this move, it’s like the holy grail of candle tricks. There are three people you need to watch out for: Your parents, the ushers and that guy with the box that collects them all at the end. I don’t like that guy. I think all that power went to his head. He didn’t just consider himself the “guy with a candle box,” instead he was always kind of smug and seemed to think he was the “gatekeeper of flame.”
Those were my tricks, but I am certain that when it comes to giving kids torches, I have missed quite a few.
Comments
It cracks me up that Anonymous thinks you ruined Christmas Eve and “turned it into something funny” when it’s clear from all the posts that the fun was already there just begging to be had.
Like Jeff, we use glow sticks now too. The only good shenanigans you can get into with those is if you can manage to chew them open enough to get the glowy stuff on other things.
My sister’s Sunday school class once did a little candlelight service when she was in middle school. They had their candles lit. They bowed their heads to pray. The bangs were big in Texas in the early nineties and full of hairspray. The smell of burning hair caught the attention of even the best prayer ninja. We still won’t let her live this down!!!!!
We are having our Christmas Eve service in a rental space that does not allow candles. We talked about the cell phone option, but are going to use glosticks. However, I HAD to suggest to my fellow staff members that we do the ninja stars.
bwaaahahahahahahaaaa!
Still giggling – thanks!
Deb
P.S. WV= ingsti
If you touch your candle to Great Aunt Tessie’s hair, it’ll go up in flame in an ingsti.
Last year my five year old just had to have her own candle to hold. Being one to never deny someone the privilege of pyromania, I obliged. All was going well until halfway through Silent Night when hot wax dripped on her finger. She proceeded to throw (it went a good 5 feet) her candle. It narrowly missed the lady in front of us with the holiday sweater but landed on the carpet where my husband quickly extinguished it. Seriously… fire and children don’t mix…. ever.
Yeah…I was the kid who actually got out of the church with the candle. I went home that night, walked into my bedroom, lit the candle, and left my bedroom. Forty-five minutes later the fire department was at my house, my room was scorched black, my dresser was half gone, and worst of all, half my Christmas toys had been destroyed.
Sadly I failed at most of these on Christmas Eve.
It all began when I found the perfect candle at church. It was brand new and nice and tall, I was excited. My moms was dinky and old, and useless, I thought for sure I could achieve every one of these.
I achieved in playing with the wax, until I spilled some on the person in front me by accident. So I thought, ‘Ok, I can keep it light until I leave the church, I’ll achieve two then” Well, my mom sneaked up behind me and blew my candle out. I was very sad. So I attempted to walk out with it. I made it past the ushers without having to return this brand new candle. I was all excited, I even did a Fred Flinstone jump. When I got to the car my mom saw that I still had the candle. She said I shouldn’t steal from the church and she made me go inside and return it.
I was very sad. I was defeated.
don't forget to try and blue flame in the back row.
haaahHAAAAA "the gatekeeper of the flame" excellent
Easy. Challenge the person next to you to raise their candle as high as possible. Nothing says mediocrity like half-heartedly dangling your candle at waist-level. Most memorable Christmas eve: my brother and husband, front row, packed church, seeing who could hold their candles higher and keep them lit the longest. The only way it could have been better is if one of them stood on the pew.
My family goes down in local Church history when it comes to Christmas Eve candlelight stories. In fact, our old Church instated a "8 and older" rule for candles because of a certain… [ahem]… "incident." It involved a girl with very long hair seated in front of us; my 4-year-old sister swaying, with candle, to the tune of "Silent Night;" my 6-year-old brother passionately correcting her, and in the process, lighting his forelocks on fire with his candle; my alarmed mother smashing said brother over the head with a hymnal to put it out; and said brother howling in pain and surprise as the final notes of "Silent Night" faded into not-so-silent oblivion.
Although God led us to a different Church since then, we still go back there every Christmas Eve. And we relive those special memories of flames and extermination. Oh, the joys of Christmas.
I accidently lit my aunt’s hair on fire. I was standing behind her. But that’s what you get when you give a curious 4 year old a burning candle.