CANDLELIGHT ON CHRISTMAS EVE

It always surprises me that those lovely Christmas Eve candlelight services haven't been banned by the fire department.

The one I know best starts at 4:00 PM, still daylight in late December. On the way into the service, everyone is invited to take an unlit candle equipped with a white paper skirt to minimize the amount of wax on the floor and upholstery. By the end of the service, when the burning candle is produced and the minister begins the candle speech -- put on your coat now instead of trying to do it with a lit candle in your hand; keep your hair and scarf out of the flame; pass the fire from candle to candle without absolutely pouring wax onto the carpet -- the church windows are completely dark.

As the flame passes from candle to candle along the pews and the candlelight increases, the electric lights go off, except for my brother-in-law's music stand light in the choir loft at the back of the church, and a similar light on the organ. Everyone stands and sings "Silent Night," remembering the words as best they can. A hundred-odd candles in the light-colored interior of the old New England church produce enough light to read by; but who can manage a hymn book in one hand with a candle in the other? Every year I think about printing a bunch of copies of all the words we'll need in 25-point type, and then don't remember to do it.

My husband and I stand side by side in the choir loft. He sings the "Silent Night" descant he learned in school and I follow along, a fraction of a beat behind because I don't remember it from one year to the next.

At the end of "Silent Night" the minister dismisses us, the organist starts "Joy to the World," and we all try to remember those words as we file out into the Solstice cold and darkness, having failed, for another year, to burn down the church.