“And so it was, many years ago, that the candlemaker’s son learned the meaning of Christmas just as we must learn it today. “

— from “The Candlemaker,” an animated film (1957).

Pop could do anything.

Give my late paternal grandfather an old aluminum chaise lounge and, lickety-split, he could turn it into a trunk-lid-sized luggage rack.

Leftover pieces? Where do you think the myriad twirling fishing lures that jam his old tackle boxes came from? Or all those engraved identification tags?

Pop got his penchant for such inventive things from his father, Pap-Pap. Think of an old sewing machine converted into what today we’d call a scroll saw.

And as it was with aluminum, it also was with wax. As in candle wax, that is.

Over the years, Pop made some of the most extraordinary Christmas candles. They were not dainty little things of the hand-dipped variety designed for some equally fru-fru candlestick holder.

No, these were CANDLES (add reverb here) — statement-making works of wax art requiring sturdy wood bases to support the strut-their-wax stuff. If you ignored them, they tugged on your shirt and admonished you with a forceful “Light me!”

An emptied Quaker Oats cylinder was Pop’s candle form of choice. He also experimented with rectangular milk cartons. But no matter the form, Pop’s candlemaking was not simply a matter of melting the wax, picking the color(s), allowing the wax to set, taking off the form and lighting ’em up.

Oh, no.

Once the candle was set and revealed, Pop then would begin the meticulous process of dripping wax of every hue imaginable over the exterior.

Even more laborious was how he would light his candles for a while, then pull and stretch the now malleable top perimeter to create “blooming” wax “leaves,” one wee bit by another wee bit at a time.

Of course, Pop first had a little fun with a certain little boy inquiring how those “leaves” were formed: “Curling wax,” he told me, a glint in the old Scotsman’s eyes as the smoke from his pipe encircled his head like a wreath. (Honest. It happened just that way.)

Soon, the serious “burns” began. Each night, Pop’s candle offered an encouraging beacon — of hope, charity, courage, compassion, forbearance, forgiveness and renewal. In a word, Christmas.

This youngest grandson of Pop took up Christmas candlemaking for many years (though never with his acumen). The tradition fell by the wayside a few years back; no one seemed much interested.

But the tradition was revived in 2011. For you see, there was a very special request.
Someone needed that beacon. It was daughter the younger, Kady, home for a spell, making her way through difficult times and looking for guidance and comfort in old, familiar (and familial) Christmas themes.

True, the tree was back in its traditional corner by the low- and slow-burning fireplace. The train platform was up and running. And, yes, the old-fashioned refrains of many Christmas carols were there, too (though then as much from a new-fashioned satellite radio as from an old-fashioned turntable).

But, she reminded, there was no Christmas candle.

So, with just over a week to go before Christmas, the son of the son of the candlemaker, perhaps himself in need of a Christmas tutorial, made a new, Pop-worthy Christmas candle, 5-pounds-plus and nearly a foot tall.

It was a comforting beacon that was lighted anew. And its maker likes to think that, in its small but evocative manner, it helped a daughter find her way.

That same candle also helped its maker deal with some challenging times. But after five years, it had burned its course. Thus, a new candle, its multi-colored layers poured over a one-week period, has bowed.

Last weekend, its oatmeal cylinder form was carefully peeled off to reveal a brand-new masterpiece in wax. As an ode to Pop, it was placed on one of his original wooden candle bases and now rests in the middle of the dining room table. It will burn nightly right through Three Kings’ Day, Epiphany, on Jan. 6.

“Pop’s smiling,” oldest brother Scott texted back after being sent a photo of “The Christmas Candle for 2017.”

“Pop would be proud!!” responded brother Shannon’s wife, Roseann. “Nice to see the tradition still going!!”

And as that wick was lit for the first time, its light filling the dining room and dancing off the walls and windows, one couldn’t help but sense that Pop was there.

After all, he was.

Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).