Introduction and Background

The Compassionate Friends Worldwide Candle Lighting, always on the 2nd Sunday in December, unites family and friends around the globe in lighting candles for one hour to honour the memories of the sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and grandchildren who have died. As candles are lit on the second Sunday in December at 7:00 pm local time, hundreds of thousands of people commemorate and honour the memory of all children gone too soon.

Now believed to be the largest mass candle lighting on the globe, the annual Worldwide Candle Lighting (WCL), a gift to the bereavement community from The Compassionate Friends, creates a virtual 24-hour wave of light as it moves from time zone to time zone commencing here in New Zealand.

TCF’s WCL started in the United States in 1997 as a small internet observance and has since swelled in numbers as word has spread throughout the world of the remembrance. Hundreds of formal candle lighting events are held, and thousands of informal candle lightings are conducted in homes, as families gather in quiet remembrance of children who have died and will never be forgotten.

Families celebrate with a quiet elegance, at 7 p.m. local time, lighting candles for one hour to remember their child. Such a moving occasion bypasses all geographical, religious and cultural divides.

As everyone lights their candles at seven pm local time, far-flung parts of the world get illuminated in turn, as their children are remembered.

Check this website for events in NZ or the Internet for events held overseas.

If there is no Candle Lighting near you, celebrate in your own home with friends and family.

The Compassionate Friends International
Whanganui Chapter

2025 Candle Lighting 

Sunday, 14 December 2025 at 7pm
Peter Pan Statue, Virgninia Lake

What happens in Whanganui New Zealand ? 

As NZ is the first country to greet the dawn, we commence this worldwide wave of candlelight honouring our children gone too soon, at 7pm NZ time. In Whanganui we will meet at Virginia Lake at 6.30pm on the second Sunday in December. Gathering around the statute of Peter Pan by the Lakeside We will light candles in honour of our children, grandchildren, brothers & sisters who have died too soon.

• Location: Virginia Lake Whanganui by the Peter Pan statue….. follow the footprints….
• Highlights: Readings; Children’s activities; Poetry; Candle Lighting Ceremony at 7pm;
  Roll call of our Children; Music;
  Candles supplied - or bring your own if you prefer,
• Bring: Photos; mementos; picnic chair/umbrella ! if needed ;
  After the event join us for light refreshments.

Peter Pan The boy who would not grow up

For more information:

Contact Keren 06 3443345 marshkandb@gmail.com
Check our New Zealand website www.thecompassionatefriends.org.nz
See us on facebook too