Old Salem Candle Tea

We made it for "take two" of the Old Salem Candle Tea. Our friends, Chuck and LeeAnn have an annual tradition to treat a different couple to the Tea every year, and this year, Jordan and I (and Addison; guess I should say family instead of couple now) were the honored couple. Jordan has been several times when he was much younger, but, while I have always wanted to go, I have never attended.


We got there to get in line at about 6:30 and didn't go in until after 9. I was very nervous about how Miss Addison would do, but she and Salem both did wonderfully. Around 8, when Addison started rubbing her eyes, Jordan took her to the car and drove her around down-town Winston in an attempt to get her to go to sleep. She did fall asleep but once he got back in line with Addison in her car seat, she decided that she was missing the action and woke up fussing. We got inside and took her out of her car seat, and she was pleasant through the whole tour.


The Candle Tea is a tradition at Old Salem, a Moravian community founded back in the mid 1700's (the Salem part of Winston-Salem)(which houses the campus of Salem College, the oldest women's college in the US, also the college I attended for a short amount of time). The Candle Tea is not really a "tea". I think that it is the original name used in the time period that it was started and they kept it to be historically accurate.

We waited in a line that formed outside of one of the many historically restored buildings that line the street of Old Salem. This particular building is called the Brothers House (or Single Brothers House). It was used to house the young men of the village while they were learning a certain trade of the times. This would be before they were married. There was also a Single Sisters House, which housed the... well, single young women. After marriage there was a house for young married couples. I think after you had children, they kicked you out to have your very own house!! They had a lot of "houses" for people of all walks of life.

The line is typically long and slow moving, but I think it's part of the fun. This was where we got to just talk and hang out, and although it was cold, it was a nice atmosphere. It just feels like Christmas. You can also visit the stores as you move past them in line. We used them as a place to take the babies when we thought they were getting cold, needed a diaper change, or to feed them. They take you in in groups of about 25 people, so its kind of slow moving.

You are taken on a tour of the house, but stay a while in each room to experience different aspects of Old Salem. The first room was an explanation of the tea, other Moravian traditions , such as the Love Feast on Christmas Eve, and just the community's everyday life in the 1700's. All of the workers are in full-on traditional clothing that fits with the time period. The second room was set up with pews and the original pipe organ of Salem. There we sang Moravian Christmas carols. We then went down into the basement where we watched a candle making demonstration. the next room was my favorite. We went to the kitchen and ate Moravian sugar bread and drank Moravian coffee!! It's so yummy!! They talked about kitchen stuff while we ate. I don't really know what all was said because they distracted me with food. I was also holding a very sleepy, somewhat squirmy Addison and admiring some of the other babies in the group with us. It was after 10:00 at this point and I was starting to fade. I was still enjoying myself, but I was tired. The next room was also in the basement ( I feel like I'm leaving out some sets of stairs. Or maybe even a whole room. LeeAnn, you'll have to correct me on my recollections. Never mind, I decided to look it up online. Go here and get a much better summary of the tour). The room was in the sub-basement. There we saw the Salem Putz, a tiny little model of Salem as it would have been in the early 1900s. The last is a Putz Nativity scene, which we skipped out on. It was 10:30 and the girls were getting to their boiling point and we all know the story from Luke (or Matthew).

It was a fun night. I would definitely like to go back through at some point, though I don't know that I would want to do it every year. I imagine next year will be tough with an 18 month old baby girl.

Thanks to Chuck and LeeAnn (and adorable baby Salem) for sharing this tradition with us. We had a great time and, as always, enjoyed spending the time with you! You are such great friends and I am so excited to see our girls grow up in the Lord together. We love you!!