Candlelight Service
One of SU’s longest-standing traditions has taken many forms, and is now making strides to be more inclusive.
Being one of Southwestern’s longest-standing traditions, the Candlelight Service, also referred to as the Christmas Carol service or the “Candlelighting” service, has been taking place in various forms since 1915.
Before the event began, Christmas programming for the University was organized by the First Methodist Church or the SU Sunday School and followed a very traditional program, including dinner, hymns, and the dispersal of small gifts. In 1915, Dean of Women Laura Kuykendall and Mrs. Bishop (President Bishop’s wife) wanted to begin a new annual tradition within the community, and thus the Christmas Carol Service & Dinner began.
Being developed by Kuykendall, this event held the same level of extravagance and theatrics as other campus events she planned, all of which appear in separate entries within Placing Memory. Also like those events, this event was held on the Eastern “Women’s Campus” for years, until it was moved after the completion of the Chapel in 1953.
When it was still held at the Women’s Campus, Kuykendall and Mrs. Bishop decorated the entire Ladies Annex with red and green ribbons, holly wreaths, garlands, and mistletoe. Along with this, they included many natural elements too, such as orange and golden autumn leaves, flowers from the forest, and green vegetation. A grand Christmas Tree was placed in the middle of the dining room, centrally in the space.
As guests entered the area, two female students acted as “Christmas Spirits,” handing out programs for the event to follow. Then, the Southwestern orchestra began to play a Christmas song, “Holy, Holy, Holy”, while the women of the Ladies Annex marched into the event. They all wore matching white gowns and held lit candlesticks as they paraded in, singing and chanting with the music. With the lights in the space dimmed, their candles lit the way as they formed two chains around the Christmas Tree. When every woman was in her place, the girls then sang “Holy Night” acapella, for the whole building to hear.
After the procession, various songs, vignettes, and readings were performed for the guests. The attendees then enjoyed a buffet dinner, which included quite traditional Christmas foods such as ham, giblet gravy, and dinner rolls. To close out the event, the Ladies' Annex held an open house for any outside guests or male community members to stay and attend.
As the years went on, the event was slightly altered, with some years the female students wearing collating dresses of red, green, and white, and the program and menu changing from year to year. In some years, more pagan-style figures were also included, such as “Christmas fairies” wearing crowns of poinsettias. In typical Kuykendall fashion, symbolic meaning was assigned to some of the event’s colors, with red representing courage, blue truth, and the Christmas lights representing the light within every one of her female students, according to a 1918 edition of The Megaphone.
After Kuykendall’s death in 1935, the event continued to be held, and some of the traditions she instated were maintained for a longer time than those of her other events (see below the image from the 1958 Candlelight Service). Still, the event over time lost much of its original spectacle, becoming more and more traditional after some years of being held in the Chapel, where it is still held today.
The Candlelight service as it is held in the chapel today resembles many other traditional services: while there is a significant lack of white dresses and choreographed movements, there is still the lighting of candles at the end of the event and liturgical readings interspersed with lessons from a preacher and songs by a choir. What distinguishes this service from others is not just its rich history and lingering pageantry, but rather, the sense of splendor and unity that comes from such a longstanding event with a vibrant tradition behind it.
Megaphone articles dating back to its origin stress the beauty, tradition, and importance of the Candlelight service, and encourage attendance for all students. As an event that had been held in the Women’s Building for much of its existence, it did not originally involve men, but as time passed and it moved to the Chapel, the event became less exclusive and more unifying. Members of the Georgetown community have long been involved in the receptions and donation drives that occasionally accompanied the service, and now comprise the majority of those in attendance.
2023’s Candlelight service marked 107 years of the tradition. One of the authors is a member of Southwestern’s University Chorale and was involved in leading the audience in singing Christmas carols and the performance of several prepared pieces. The readings chosen for this particular service had wide-reaching applications for modern life, and Southwestern’s new Chaplain Reverend Swain led the congregation in seven transdenominational lessons about unity. While the Chapel setting and nature of the teachings and readings situated the event securely as one designed for those celebrating the Christian holiday, the solemn and peaceful air of the service seemed to call less upon the history of Methodism at Southwestern and reached more into the future of what spirituality at Southwestern could be.
