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December 14th, 2006

Christingle kerfuffle

Christingles again – this time in Chelmsford cathedral (my local) where there has been a mild to-do. Here is a link that talk about it:

Telegraph | News | Cathedral puts out the flames of Christingle

This is what MP Eric Pickles had to say:

Eventually, they will work out a way to take all the fun out of Christmas… Health and safety will ban everything. I would be kind of interested to hear when the last time an orange and a candle set fire to a child’s hair.”

I think my answer would be that it is rare for oranges to set light to a child’s hair, but not so rare for candles to do so if hair is placed very close to them. But as he is only ‘kind of interested’ I will not be using my valuable time to contact him about it.

This report talks about ‘flaming candles’, which do sound a bit scary and dangerous to me.

I note that the Childrens Society are now promoting the glow candles with a website called Glow Candles. This fits in quite well with my Church Times cartoon tomorrow which the citizens of this blog had a hand in helping with. I am not going to give anything away, but it is not on an unrelated topic.

If you have been injured by a glow candle please write in so we can get a good debate going.

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18 Responses to “Christingle kerfuffle”


  1. MB says:

    I know part of the reason I went to carols by candlelight when I was a kid was to cover my fingers in wax and pretend I didn’t have any fingerprints.

    December 14th, 2006 at 7:35 pm
  2. Aaron says:

    I don’t know…how many children for how many years carried lit candles without burning all of England to the ground?

    December 14th, 2006 at 8:47 pm
  3. ferijen says:

    Gently treads in.

    I had a Christingle-related singed fringe as a three year old. But then I also managed to blow hot wax in my eye at the age of seven. Both of these experiences make me think that giving lit candles to kids in close proximity isn’t probably the best thing in the world to do.

    December 14th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
  4. Emma says:

    How else are kids expected to learn that candles get hot? Surely the cocktail sticks which are used to impale the symbolic fruits and nuts are just as risky?

    December 14th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
  5. tortoise says:

    Tortoise junior’s school Christingle service is tomorrow afternoon. If last year’s is anything to go by, this will consist of:
    School hall, somewhat smaller than Chelmsford Cathedral.
    120-odd kids.
    Lots of proud parents.
    120-odd candles being lit in close proximity.
    Intense heat.
    120-odd very excited kids.
    Lots of proud parents suddenly turning into somewhat nervous parents.
    I do not, at this stage, wish to conjecture what might transpire thereafter.

    December 14th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
  6. Rachel says:

    we had almost 200 at our christingle last sunday and no accidents…..in fact none at any of the services i’ve led over 5 christmases now!!

    i did notice that the Children’s society safety posters point out that long hair should be tied back and candles held out from you….

    December 14th, 2006 at 11:47 pm
  7. Maddie says:

    I have been to a Christingle service when I was very young where someone’s fringe got burnt. I am also rather nervous of the people behind me at candlelit services.

    December 14th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
  8. Bimble says:

    When you think about the sheer number of Christingle services and the sheer lack of death/serious injury/destruction of property in relation it seems to me almost like banning flying, because the occasional plane might crash.

    Damned foolish.

    December 15th, 2006 at 12:06 am
  9. Tiffer says:

    I think I said this on your blog last year but my church has a legendary story about a previous curates daughter who had lots of big thick bushy hair, and had used lots and lots of flammable hairspray to make said hair pretty, and all went a bit wooshy wooshy because of the candle behind. The story is told over and over because no one was hurt, except for the girls hair.

    However much I hate health and safety, I think as churches we need to be trained in how to use candles as adults let alone children. I mean christingles aren’t the most stable of objects – they are spherical which presents a problem in itself. If only the world was still flat…

    (maybe back before galileo it looked more like a pancake with a candle in the middle?)

    December 15th, 2006 at 12:38 am
  10. MB says:

    Ooops, I spoke too soon. This year the carols bu candlelight will have candlelight as provided by a looped moive on powerpoint.

    December 15th, 2006 at 6:07 am
  11. Rob says:

    Congratulations to the Telegraph on their well-researched story. “There is no record of a child going up in flames since the Christingle service began at Chelmsford Cathedral in 1747.” The church became a cathedral in 1914 and Christingle services were introduced to the C of E in 1968. Maybe there were clandestine Christingle services held by breakaway Moravian Anglicans before then? Maybe the records were destroyed by a freak accident with a spontaneously combusting orange?

    December 15th, 2006 at 8:49 am
  12. Kate P says:

    Years ago I was playing the organ for a Christingle service, with the Padre’s young daughter by my side. When told to blow her candle out, she almost put it up my nose, asking me to lick my fingers and snuff it (while playing!) Some interesting harmony followed while I did as I was asked. And on the subject of candlelight, there’s nothing conjures up Christmas for me quite like staggering around a dark church in a full length cassock, trying to juggle a lit candle and a folder full of music, and all the while keeping the smallest choir boys from setting each other alight.(it’s always the boys. Know this isn’t pc, but it just is!)

    December 15th, 2006 at 9:15 am
  13. Richard says:

    We have similar issues raised every year, and probably much more of a problem than Chelmsford in that our Church realistically seats 150, and we had nearly 500 people turn up a few years ago.

    We now run the entire Christingle service three times on Christmas Eve afternoon, with 250 tickets for each service, all of which go. We still use the candles, although our health and safety officer usually stations people with fire extinguishers and buckets of sand at strategic points around the Church, and the children aren’t allowed to process with the candles.

    December 15th, 2006 at 9:27 am
  14. Richard says:

    Just a thought – even if the candles are replaced with glow sticks, isn’t the Christingle still terribly dangerous with those four cocktail sticks, I mean they could have someones eye out… :o

    December 15th, 2006 at 9:32 am
  15. Tiffer says:

    Richard – Dave has shown us the light (see next post)

    December 15th, 2006 at 9:40 am
  16. Emma says:

    A few years ago we had a ‘carols by torchlight’ service at my parish church because of fear of flames… it was a farce and was not repeated. I reckon Chelmsford Cathedral will discover this for themselves this year…

    December 15th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
  17. Paul G says:

    As the Chelmsford diocesan children’s work adviser I must make it quite clear that this decision was not made on the basis of any advice offered by me.

    I’m not a candle type of person, but when I visited Rome recently and found that most of the churches have electric fake “candles” to switch on rather than real ones to light I nearly embarked on the opposite of an iconoclastic riot.

    Personally I don’t see why real candles and, say, nicely projected images of candles can’t co-exist – and I am especially mystified as to why in our own parish, where we use a digital projector every week for words and images, the candle-lit carol service is the one time we make everyone sing from a sheet (both hard to read and a totally unnecessary extra fire-risk.)

    Paul

    December 15th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
  18. Richard says:

    Ok, interesting twist here – seems Chelmsford is not alone in trying the glow sticks – I forwarded on the URL of this page and got a ‘well we’re trying them too’ back from our Rector.

    December 16th, 2006 at 11:35 pm