save birthday candles? We have recently moved and I found some birthday candles. They were new, thank the Lord. Thought I had inherited the disease for a minute there. But it had me thinking about how my mom had a drawer full of USED candles. I never quite understood why. Why not just buy new ones?
So has anyone else’s mom done this? Or do you? What other odd things do you stash in a forgotten drawer?
Toodles,
WoS
My mom saved them, but bought new ones when another b’day came around!?!?
I live on res (dorms) in a house w/ 11 other people. Someone had a birthday at the beginning of the year and we got some candles. Now we use them for everyone’s birthday. Have to blow them out quickly though because they’re getting kind of short
Heck, I STILL do this, and I’m gonna be 46 this week. I don’t reuse them on birthday cakes, but I do use them as wicks for votive candles which have lost their own wicks, and they’re handy to use to light charcoal, for instance. I started saving them before those extra long lighters came out.
However, I save just about EVERYTHING. One of my nicknames is “Lynn the Packrat” and for good reason.
No, but Mom saves wrapping paper. She unwraps it very carefully from presents and puts it away to use again later. Once we found her ironing wrapping paper.
My mom is really strange sometimes, bless her heart.
When we dismantled the house that my grandmother lived in her entire married life, we found what must have been every margarine tub she’d ever purchased.
I lived with her for two years. I have very clear memories of the lectures I received for using anything less than Tupperware™ for food saving purposes. Simply nothing else would prevent the bacteria from getting in!
AREN’T moms precious?!!! The things they were taught, before we were even a glint in Dad’s eye. It harkens back to a time that none of us can remember, much less relate to!
I’m pretty sure my mom saved the number candles, but not regular candles. I’m not quite sure why she’d save the number candles, since you can’t exactly reuse them the next year and my brother’s four years younger than I am, so they’d be forgotten by the time he reached the appropriate age.
Doper mothers, tell me the truth: when your first child is born, you get issued a secret handbook outlining all the inexplicable things you can do to drive your kids nuts, don’t you?
My mother used to save pens that didn’t work… actually, I think she still does this. She thinks that if you write enough with the pen that supposedly doesn’t work, it’ll work again. Somehow, I’m not so sure. Thank goodness I don’t do that.
Several of us are going to find out in a few months. But I somehow suspect if there is such a handbook one of the rules is ‘Don’t tell about the handbook’
My mom is a major packrat… she still has tons of little odds and ends of mine from when I was younger and left behind when I moved and she kept in case I ever wanted them again. Last I visited her I started going through stuff and finally just said ‘know what mom? Unless you really truly think I’ll need it or it’s clothes you think might still fit and I need to try on… get rid of it’ So maybe she’ll have more space to put more junk in, but at least I won’t feel guilty for her holding onto stuff I haven’t seen/used in several years. The only upside is she still has baby blankets and maybe some clothes and cloth diapers which will come in handy. I know my cabbage patch kids wore some of my baby clothes…
ooooooo my i’m so guilty of keeping the ornaments on the cake. Of course, I was a child so they were toys to me heh. I actually still have a Garfield one…i’m so ashamed…
Venturing a guess here, as I’m just a tad older than Lynn, but I think it has to do with our parents being depression kids. My Mom kvetches at Dad for the stuff he saves, but she’s cut from the same cloth.
I’ll cast no stones, as there are things in my shop which would cause any rational life form to query, “WTF?”
I was leaning more towards her being a packrat. course, she was born in '53 soooo. She’s not as bad as hubby’s grandma. She saves EVERYTHING. like rewashes paper plates…plastic sandwich bags…i mean everything. it’s horrible…but of course, she is 90 and grew up having to ration things. Oh well.