When I went out shopping with Justin’s grandma a couple weeks ago, I found this candle at a surprisingly expensive store with fantastically friendly women working the sales. I kept being surprised that the prices were quite so high, and then finding something that was really adorable, and then having a delightful snippet of conversation with one of the ladies working the floor. I found the candle in the back of the store in a section full of things on sale for 50% off. I was looking it over when one of the ladies came over to tell me that she’d bought two of those and she *loved* them. And when I couldn’t find a price on it, she ran over to find that out for me, and when she told me how much it cost and I said I had to think about it a little bit, she told me to think hard because it was a really nice candle.
I bought the candle. And she’s right, it’s a REALLY good candle.
And here’s the fun bit: it runs on two D batteries. Yeah, it’s a completely fake candle. On the bottom of the candle, it has an on, off, and timer function. On and off are self-explanatory, but the timer bit is the really awesome thing about this candle. When it’s turned on using the timer function, it will stay on for 5 hours before turning itself off. And then 24 hours after the time it was turned on the first time, it’ll turn on again. Which means that sometime between 7:15 and 7:30 every night, the candle turns on, and then it turns off five hours later.
It’s AWESOME! I wander into my bedroom in the evening and find a cheery candle burning on my dresser. I go to sleep to candlelight and don’t have to worry about burning the house down. I don’t have to worry about smoke or chemicals being burned into the air of my house. And I don’t have to think about lighting it or blowing it out! It turns on by itself, a helpful, cheery little flickering sweetness.
It is, for certain, one of my favorite things in my house lately and one of my favorite things I’ve bought in a while. And I really didn’t expect to like it so much. I thought “Hrm, candle. Looks pretty.” And now I’m all “Battery powered candle!!! Best invention ever!!!! I want to have more!!!”
And I’ve seen some terrible fake candles, so to prove my point that this is awesome, I’ve made a quick 34-second video showing that it looks really realistic. There’s no sounds — the whooshing sound in the back is just the air-conditioning blowing, and then clicks as I try to figure out how to stop my camera from recording.
(I’m not sure it’s working in Chrome, but it does work in Firefox. And I’m not checking IE because I hope none of you use that.)
Isn’t that great! There’s no way I’d be able to burn a real candle that close to a beloved childhood teddy bear. But it sure looks like I am!! 🙂