Every year I go to the Waldorf School's Winter Festival to enjoy the magic and watch the children have fun. This year I decided to have some fun myself making a gnome garden and dipping a beeswax candle.
Along with the children I chose a wooden slab, a felted gnome and three special treasures. Then I went to a little table and sat on a very, very little chair (happily soon finding a slightly larger chair which was considerably easier to get up and down from!) We shared glue guns and treasures such as moss, sticks, shells, acorns, bark, berries and such. It was SO much fun. I think I see more gnome gardens in my future!
The candle dipping room was magical. The windows were covered and the dark room was lit with white fairy lights and flickering candles. In the center and around the sides were gnomes, fairies, crystals, geodes, shells and all manner of treasures.
Each of us was given a very skinny beeswax candle on the end of a string. We walked slowly and quietly around the room and when we reached the pot of beeswax we carefully dipped our candle in. Around the room once more and by the time we reached the pot again the wax had dried and the candle was ready to dip. When the candle was as thick as our thumb it was wrapped in tissue paper with a little poem slipped inside.
A Candle's but a simple thing,
it starts with just a bit of string.
Yet dipped and dipped with patient hand,
it gathers wax upon the strand until,
complete and snowy white,
it gives at last a lovely light.