Looked Like Rudolph Sneezed All Over Everything

And now we’ve learned an important lesson about storing Christmas candles in the attic

That lesson would be the fact that candle wax melts at a temperature less than the attic reaches during the summer months.

This fact is at least a little disturbing.  Attics get hot...it's kinda what they do.  But, near as I can tell, candle way melts somewhere north of 140 degrees F.  I suppose there exists the possibility that the $3 holiday-themed candle that I bought on sale last year isn't made of the highest quality wax money can buy, but how much that changes the melting point is an exercise left to the reader.

Yeah, nobody's doing that calculation for you.  

So, I got my Christmas decorating done recently.  This includes putting up a tree, lighting and decorating the aforementioned tree, putting some lights outside, hanging up a novelty-large stocking (which seems to remain empty...what's up, Santa?), putting out the Christmas rubber duckies, and making the house smell like Christmas.  This final part is achieved through the use of novelty scented jar candles purchased on a whim last year when they were on sale for like 3 bucks apiece.  Since they are all Christmas-scented (one of them is mine, one is holly berry, and I totally forget what the purple one is supposed to be, but it totally does smell purple), I tucked them in with the Christmas decorations when I put everything away back in January.  All of that stuff goes into the attic which reaches some pretty lofty temperatures, even with the addition of the attic fan.  Those temperatures are apparently enough to melt $3 scented candle wax, apparently.  This turned out not to be much of an issue for the white and purple candles, since they were stored upright in their plastic tubs.  Sure, the wicks disappeared into a little pool of wax, but nothing a little flame and a pair of tweezers couldn't solve.  The holly berry candle (arguably my favorite), suffered something of a worse fate.  The lid of the jar, with its flimsy plastic gasket, was insufficient to hold back the torrent of melting candle wax from an entire summer's worth of attic heat, and red goo poured out all over the tub, ruining a length of silver garland, a spool of white ribbon, and half of a string of lights.  Several other boxes of decorations are now tinted red as well, with no significant damage to the contents.  

This is crap.  

So, in addition to having to replace the lights and the ribbon, my house will no longer smell red and there's not a lot I can do about it.  Unless, of course, I find myself in a store selling Christmas-themed items between now and December 25th, and they happen to have holly scented jar candles.  I guess the odds of that are fairly decent.  And if I do manage to replace the candle, I'll have learned a very valuable lesson in jar candle storage.  Always store candles vertically when they go into the attic.