Candlelight Dinners with My Toddlers

Dinner by candlelight is romantic, right? In the cozy-table-for-two in the corner of a dark restaurant kind of way. What if I said that my family and I routinely eat our weekday meals by candlelight? Does that still seem romantic, or just crazy?

For years, my family and I have eaten most of our winter meals—weekday meals, that is—by candlelight. Through the relentless drudgery of weekday schedules and meal preparation, through the kids' toddler and tween years, between shuttling them to and from practices, and before and after piano lessons. I must say, the teen years do have their gifts: The kids are finally at an age where there is less need to say things like, “Please stop trying to catch your food on fire,” or “Please don’t blow the candles out until we’re done with dinner.” I love it when I am buzzing around the kitchen preparing a mid-week dinner and ask one of my kids over the simmering pots, “Light the candles, please!” Then, in a moment I look forward to all day, we finally come together, sit down, and relax into this sacred family time. It doesn’t take much effort to keep a box of classic cream tapers in the kitchen, and lighting them adds a simple ritual, civility, and beauty to our daily lives.

This is romantic living—finding simple pleasures that enhance the ordinary.

I believe that my family’s weekday candlelight meals are the epitome of romantic living, just not in the traditional way that most of us define romance. I define romance much more broadly than intimacy between lovers and wrote extensively about it in my piece, “My Long and Complicated Relationship With Romance: Part Two.” I believe that romantic living is a way of being that can happen daily, not reserved solely for special occasions.

In the blog post, I wrote, “Romantic living is about noticing the sublime beauty among the hardships and sharp edges of everyday life. It involves a reverence for simplicity and the connective moments available when embracing beauty delivered even in raw and unadorned states. It arrives through ordinary moments like the scent of the tomato vine left on your skin after gardening. Lighting a candle for a winter meal of hearty soup—earthy and humble yet deeply nourishing and satisfying."

I have been re-reading Kari Leibowitz’s book, How to Winter, and it includes an entire chapter on candlelight. Just when I think I am alone in my obsession with candlelight and notions of romantic living, I find a kindred spirit. Leibowitz wrote, “When all the lights are on, people tend to talk about what they are doing—their outer lives. Sitting around candlelight or firelight, people start to talk about how they are feeling, their inner lives.”  

I didn’t know that health psychologists like Leibowitz actually study the effects of candlelight on human behavior and mental health. It turns out that Leibowitz is one of many researchers (highly concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere) studying this subject, with scientific findings indicating that candlelight alters how we interact and feel. I didn’t need to read this fact to know it is true—I just sit at my own kitchen table with my children and husband and feel us settle into a conversation that surpasses asking one another how the day was. Though I do find it fascinating to learn about how closely humans are connected to fire and candlelight. Humans have celebrated with fire and light for as long as we have known how. In Judaism, candles are lit at sundown to commence holy days; we light candles on cakes for birthdays; we put lights on Christmas trees; and Catholics use candles to praise God, honor the dead, or offer prayer. In modern life, as candlelight becomes less a necessity and more a simple luxury, each flickering flame can carry a kind of celebration.

I am only occasionally reminded of what life would be like without electricity during the occasional power outages caused by winter storms or high winds. It seems ever so slightly less romantic to live totally without electricity. Come to find out, I rather like being able to cook with overhead lighting and work on projects past sunset if I choose, lamps all in good use. We recently had a “high wind event” that lasted several days just before the Christmas holiday, and many homes in Boulder were without power for several days. 

While the power was out, I was happy to be at home during the day, without screens to pull me away from the stillness and the chores that require electricity to distract me with business. But once the sun set, which seemed surprisingly early, the house became a solemn place. Life seemed to have been sucked out of our home with the last rays of sunlight. I lit candles, and though charming at our regular weekday dinners, they seemed tricky to deal with in the inky darkness of my house. Walking from one room to another was suddenly a chore within itself—the candle’s flame threatening to go out if I walked with my usual speed and intention. Each darkened room seemed a foreign and desolate place, and I quickly decided that, as much as I wax poetic about the good old days, I wouldn’t have liked this part of “old timey living.” After the power was restored, I realized I use candlelight to slow things down in a modern life that could otherwise buzz at a relentless pace. I also considered my dependence on electric lighting and how I enjoy candlelight in a very modern way—as an ordinary luxury.

I am not the only one who uses candlelight as a simple, everyday luxury in modern life. The Danes, according to Leibowitz, burn an average of 3.5 kilograms (7.7 pounds) of candles a year, with nearly 60 per cent lighting candles daily. Wow! That is A LOT of candles! While in the US, candles are largely reserved for special occasions, in Denmark and other Scandinavian countries, coziness is part of everyday life and there is an expectation of soothing light. Leibowitz shared this description of her time in Tromso, Norway, in the dead of winter, which epitomizes the coziness of the candle-obsessed nation: “As I walked around, bundled in wool from head to toe, the amber glow of streetlights reflected off wet pavement. Indoors, toasty bars and restaurants with dimmed sconces and tapers on tables encouraged lingering. Outside the city center, candles or lamps in the windows of wooden houses bathed snow-covered eaves in gold, transforming neighborhoods into gingerbread villages.”

Mmmmm… gingerbread villages.

I often wonder what our neighbors think as they walk by our house, my little family gathered around our kitchen table on the long, dark winter nights, candles blazing. A snapshot of the ordinary amplified by a connective glow.

Enjoy the slow- Heather