The Candlelit Dinner

My dad is not a handyman, contrary to his own personal opinions on the subject.

This fact was fully realized one Christmas when, in his attempt to save the day, he very nearly ruined everything.

The fateful event took place several years back now. Me and my younger brother were both still living at home at the time and were at an age where we still held that pure, childlike enthusiasm for all things Christmas.

The excitement in our house was rife, the trimmings were up, the tree was in place, and we had decorated it beyond all recognition. Neatly wrapped presents took shelter at its base and Christmas cards hung from strings that lined the walls in crisscross patterns. The only thing slightly amiss, was an inconveniently broken light switch in the living room.

It wasn’t a massive issue. The light hadn’t been working for a few days now, but the Christmas tree gave off a lot of illumination and we had a standing lamp set up in the far corner that easily brightened the remainder of the room.

Enter, my dad. He figured it’d be an easy fix and said it needed sorting out by the morning, so we could see properly while we were opening up our presents the next day. It was Christmas eve you see.

Anyway, fast forward an hour or so and, would you believe it, the light was actually fixed. He’d switched off the electrics, had a fiddle with the wires behind the switch, turned the power back on and, ta da! we had light!

All was well, that is until my mum got home. She’d been out at work at this point but finished early as it was Christmas eve after all. Unfortunately, her work didn’t stop at the door, as my mum liked to get everything prepped in advance for the big day. This included cooking the Christmas Turkey.

Many years of slaving away in the kitchen to prepare the dinner on Christmas day meant my mum didn’t anticipate it the same way we did. To combat this, she had started cooking the turkey early, on Christmas eve, to save time the next day and give her more chance to participate in the coming festivities.

But, as my mum entered the kitchen, to begin her traditional Christmas eve preparations, we found my dad’s earlier actions had big repercussions.

As she hit the kitchen light switch, nothing happened. Trying again, she got the same result. I remember her shouting my dad’s name and the scolding that ensued after she found out he’d messed with the house electrics “on Christmas Eve of all days!”

I still don’t quite know how my dad had managed to fix the living room fittings, and in doing so, somehow knock out the lighting to the other side of the house! But it happened, and my mum certainly wasn’t happy about it.

There was a moment of panic when she contemplated what to do. The shops were all closed by now of course, and we had no way of arranging for an electrician to visit for at least a few days. My grandparents had bought it no food as they were expecting to join us for a bountiful meal the following day, as was tradition.

So it was, my mum broke out a box of matches and began lighting as many candles as she could in the small confines of our boxy kitchen. I believe we had as many as thirty dotted about by the time she was done. A random assortment of Yankee candles, tea lights and beeswax sticks that lined the windowsill and cupboard tops, leaving barely a inch of work-surface free. They cast a mellow, flickering glow around the room, creating an intimate setting, in which my mum followed through with her plan and prepped the Christmas dinner.

Cooking by candlelight was an interesting experience as she tells it. It certainly added a sense of ambiance to the whole event, but came with its fair share of complications, I’m sure. Thankfully, she hasn’t had to relive the experiment since.

In fact, I'd say it all worked out in the end. Me and my brother had a plentiful selection of presents, my parents were happy and had no further arguments on the day, and as I remember it, the Christmas dinner tasted particularly good that year.

Needless to say, despite his good intentions, my dad has been banned from fixing anything in the house since.

And with that I wish you all a very Merry Christmas.