I just spent the evening with about 35 preschoolers. (and their parents, luckily.)
they were all carrying candles.
which were lit.
inside homemade paper lanterns.
while walking through a dry grassy field.
in the dark.
This was a completely surreal experience for an American. There is just NO WAY IN HELL that any American preschool would (or could) accept that kind of liability!
I was laughing about it later and said to M--this must be a bizarre German ritual! In what other country would they allow a large group of children under 5 walk anywhere carrying lit candles? And he said:
HELLOOOOOO! Holland! :-)
6 comments:
I was cringing just reading it... American that I am!
Carol
You're up late! :-)
I know, I know! It was a fun evening but I was kind of stressed worrying about all the things that could have gone wrong!
There were a couple of parents pushing strollers while they were holding these lanterns RIGHT ABOVE THE HEADS (AND PROBABLY FLAMMABLE BLANKETS) of their infants!
But luckily it all went off without a hitch... Maybe I'm just a worrywort-- all the adults present probably celebrated St. Martins in the same way when they were kids and none of them had any visible burn scars on their bodies... ;-)
Holy burning bags of brown paper, Batman!!! Are you kidding? I get the heebie jeebies just from those "laturns" made from candles, sand and paper bags that people lay out around Christmas - and those aren't even cradled by the erratic hands of frenetic youngsters all clustered together!
Hmm the Belgian that I am....I probably would have not thought very much of it at all... If I was a parent there, I'd just watch that my child was holding the candle carefully but firm (and correct the child all the time to teach them) and I would have enjoyed the scene of all the candle lights in the dark without too much worries. And maybe I'd written a blog post about a beautiful evening spent with lots of cute little kids holding a candle?
I don't think we have organised events that let big groups of preschoolers hold candles but I'm not sure.
I really enjoyed the evening- maybe even more because of the surreal circumstances. My parents were with us and we could see that everything was going well, but it was just very bizarre for us since we grew up in such a(n)(over)protective society.
We kept cracking up: OH YESSSSS! NOW WE'RE ALL GOING TO LET THESE PRESCHOOLERS PARADE ALONG NEXT TO A STREAM! WITH NO HANDRAIL! JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Guess you had to be there. It was a very strange experience...
Scary, isn't it? We're past that stage now but it used to always freak me out, just like using real candles on a Christmas tree.
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