Scrabble by Candlelight

Published on by J. Kelland Perry

Last Sunday, I shared photos from our beautiful but cold sunny walk on January 1st.
The very next day, everything changed when a blizzard moved in and left our little town without power.

The lights – and heat! – went out at suppertime while our macaroni and cheese casserole was still baking. That was okay, because it was almost done and there was enough heat  in the oven to finish it up. So we ate by candlelight in the living room.

With no other heat source and before the room cooled off completely, hubs and I covered ourselves in bathrobes, throws and blankets and decided to read to each other from my Kindle. We chose Treasure Island, which I’d forgotten I had, and read alternating chapters until we got too cold to continue.

We found out online that the power wouldn’t be back until morning at the earliest because of the ongoing blizzard. So we got the idea to go to the small spare room upstairs, light as many candles as we could find, and hopefully stay warm that way until bedtime.

It worked! We set up a game of Scrabble and the candles on my writing desk, poured some wine, and played while listening to digital music. You wouldn’t believe how much heat comes from candles in a small area!  We were toasty warm until it was time to blow them out and turn in – cats and all, of course.

Scrabble by candleight

Who won the game, you may be wondering? Hubs was in the lead the entire time, but my last play of all seven remaining letters clinched a win for me!
Neither one of us can remember what the word was – probably because of the wine. 😉

A couple of nights ago we took up Treasure Island again and read some more to each other. No, the power wasn’t gone, but we thought it was fun enough to continue reading it that way.

Have you ever come up with fun ways to enjoy a winter power outage?
Do tell!

30 thoughts on “Scrabble by Candlelight”

  2. Ahh… a wonderfully cosy time by candlelight … blackouts never fails to quieten our busy selves and enjoy the company of each other. Well done on the last minute win of Scrabble and enjoy revisiting Treasure Island … I love the idea of reading alternate chapters to each other.

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  3. Oh, I love this! When my sons were little, we did the reading aloud by flashlight bit with them and they thought it was a hoot. I’m so glad you two took advantage of something a lot of people would have just bemoaned.

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  4. What a great way to turn a power outage into something fun. I’m going to have to follow your example the next time we lose power (it happens a lot here – summer and winter). We’d better restock our “wine cellar” to be ready! 😉 Glad the power is back on for you now. We got snow over the weekend, but only a couple inches. Stay warm, Jennifer!

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    1. Thanks, Barbara! I never expected to be using my writing desk for that purpose, but it came in handy that night for sure.
      Cold and clear today, almost too bright to look out because of the sun. Its shine is brilliant on the ice and snow, on the land and on the sea. 😊

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  10. We rarely have power cuts these days and if we do it’s usually for a very short time – but it sounds as though you made the most of this one, I don’t wish any more power cuts on you, but you could still do the same things without one 🙂

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  11. Candles for heat – that’s a new one to me! I use my dog as heat source when our power goes out. If I need to cook, I use my gas-powered camping stove. I’m usually good at home with that, unless the water main breaks, too. Then I’m outta there! No heat is bad enough, but coupling that with no water is no fun. That has happened twice to my neighborhood since I’ve lived here.

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  12. Sounds like sacred time to me. I truly enjoyed the few times the power went out long enough when my kids were still at home for us to bring out the candles and the board games. I think even my boys were a little sorry when the TV came back on, even if they wouldn’t admit it.

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  13. Jennifer, the tale is so romantic. Heating the room with candles and reading to each other.
    How sweet and cuddly it sounds. One could think one of you engineered the outage. 😊 .
    I do know how much heat many candles give out, quite amazing.

    miriam

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