Are real candles a big part of your decor at home during the holidays?

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Or do you use them year round. If you have them do you really light them or have you found some of the new battery operated real wax ones that look like a half burned candle and have a fragrance as well? It is amazing the things decorators and people in the furnishing world have invented since so many complexes people live in don't allow real candles. I went to a friend's apartment and was looking at how beautifully decorated it was for the holidays..I commented on how many fabulous candles she has and how does she tend them all. She showed me that some of them are little inserts that sit down inside a candle and have a switch that lights up what appears to be a flame..they flicker and blink..but from a distance one would never know they aren't real..she buys them in the dozens and puts them in votive holders, large candles that are a bit hollowed out...and all over her house she has the look of a soft lit candle menagerie!! It even smells like candles because she buys a hot wax fragrance heater that plugs in and you set a jar candle on it..don't light it and it melts and fills the room with fragrance...my, oh, my...what is real and what is not...aren't we living in a world where our eyes can deceive us easily if things are place properly...and you? do you prefer the real thing and the fire hazard or have you come into the decorating trend of look-alike candles..or do not like candles at all? I use real candles for dinner but am going to buy a couple of the faux ones for setting on my china hutch and in the bathroom where I don't have to worry about fire...