The holidays are all about creating a magical mood in your home for entertaining; great music, special food and drink, and of course lots of candles to help set a festive mood.
I love to use candles everywhere around the house when having people over, but am also cautious about leaving them to burn on their own.
Flameless candles are a great option to real ones, and although you don’t get some of the scents that are available with the real thing, the flicker and light that is cast would fool almost anyone.
Made of quality wax or plastic resin, the candle’s inside houses an LED light that flickers and is shaped like a small flame.
The tops can have the look of dripping wax coming down the sides for a traditional look or a clean-edge look for a more modern esthetic.
There is a small switch on the bottom that controls the on/off of the LED light.
Flameless candles are made in all standard candle sizes, from tiny votives to large three-wick style pillar candles.
I like the white or off-white four-inch pillar size candles as they are most classic and will be neutral enough to use year round.
As there are no safety worries with flameless candles, I like to display in places that I would never dream of using real ones — lining them up the staircase, outside on the front porch (no worries of them blowing out on a cold windy night), on window ledges, within the Christmas tree or in guest rooms.
For a realistic candle look, place them in glass hurricanes and add some decorative touches around the base like cranberries, holly or small metallic ornaments.
You can also use a large grouping to adorn an unused fireplace; fill the empty fireplace with birch logs, glass ornaments and a variety of flameless candle sizes.
Depending on the quality of batteries that come with the candles, the LED lights burn from 24 to 100 hours.
Flameless candles take a variety of batteries; triple A and watch battery styles are most popular — it’s always smart to keep some extras on hand during the busy entertaining season.
