Memory!

This picture reminds me of Christmas in the U.P. when we had so much snow but no electricity outside and no neighbors houses within sight. One time, for New's Years eve we had a party at our house and I came up with the idea of making large candles to light the way to our house.

I took five gallon buckets, filled them with water in the morning and put them outside. By the afternoon they were almost completely frozen but before they froze I made a hole in them to drain out the remaining water.  Instead of having a solid ice form I had a shell of the form and in this form, at the bottom, I put a candle that reflected light through the shell.  I think I made about 20 of them in all and lined our road with the lights when it got dark in the evening.  The snow banks were already high from previous snowfalls so the lights were rather high in the air. I liked the idea very much and all of our guests commented on how great it looked at the approached out house.  We were using battery power at the time so the Christmas tree was lit up and visible from the road.  It was a good party and after midnight, with a bright moon to show the way, some of us went for a little ski trip around our property. It's a good holiday memory.