General Discussion & Chat: Begging a favor from Europe, 1 by lupinelover

lupinelover wrote:
Rutholive, you must be a soul-sister to my mom. She also collects nativity scenes. I haven't counted hers, but maybe 20? Most of hers have been purchased in her world-travels, but a few are very old. One of them was purchased in Germany prior to WWI, another was purchased in Buffalo NY in about 1901. I got her a hand-carved stone one for Mother's Day that she had admired.

I have tried various products used to hold candles, but none of them worked for these. Maybe because the holders are so shallow? I tried melting a bit of paraffin into the bottoms of the holders; I tried sheet bees-wax; I tried the foam that grips the bottoms of candles. None of them worked well enough that the candles could be lit to make the windmill go around. They still tilted wildly, and could very easily have fallen out and caught the whole thing on fire.

Here is a photo of the oldest of our nativity sets (the one from Buffalo). My grandmother bought it about age 5 with money she received from her godmother.