Candle dipping in Solothurn: the same parish twice, two opposite afternoons
✓ Checked at the source · as of 11 September 2026
Solothurn is the only place in this survey with TWO documented candle-dipping events run by the same organisation — and the two feel nothing alike. In late November the wax pot stands inside the church; in mid-December it is a stall in the middle of the Christmas market. Anyone who treats them as one event plans the wrong afternoon.
📅 Dates 2026 — when and where
Two events back to back: miss the first and the next one starts on 16 December 2026.
Kerzenziehen in der reformierten Stadtkirche Solothurn
✓Tuesday, 24 November 2026 – Sunday, 29 November 2026 · 6 days
- Organiser
- Reformierte Kirchgemeinde Solothurn
Six days in a row, and the start time shifts with the weekend: Tuesday to Friday it begins at 14:00, Saturday and Sunday already at 11:00. Beeswax is used, and in 2026 the event is back inside the church itself.
Source: reformiert-solothurn.ch · checked on 11 September 2026
Kerzenziehen am Solothurner Weihnachtsmarkt
✓Wednesday, 16 December 2026 – Sunday, 20 December 2026 · 5 days
- Organiser
- Reformierte Kirchgemeinde Solothurn
Not a hall but a stand in the middle of the Christmas market: here the candle dipping is part of a larger event rather than a place of its own. The organiser says plainly what it depends on — without enough volunteers it does not happen.
Source: reformiert-solothurn.ch · checked on 11 September 2026
🕐 Opening hours 2026
Many workshops open on set weekdays only — so each window is listed separately rather than as one continuous run.
Tue 24.11 14:00 · Wed 25.11 14:00 · Thu 26.11 14:00 · Fri 27.11 14:00 · Sat 28.11 11:00 · Sun 29.11 11:00 — only the start is published, not the closing time.
🗓️ Open today?
11 days with something on, 4 of them on a Saturday or Sunday – enter your day and the check tells you what is open.
📅 Visit-day check
Pick the day you are free — the answer comes from the verified ConvivaPlus dataset, not from a run you have to work out in your head.
| Session | Run | Opening hours | Date set? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kerzenziehen in der reformierten Stadtkirche Solothurn | Tue 24 Nov – Sun 29 Nov6 days | Tue 24.11 14:00 · Wed 25.11 14:00 · Thu 26.11 14:00 · Fri 27.11 14:00 · Sat 28.11 11:00 · Sun 29.11 11:00 — only the start is published, not the closing time. | confirmed |
| Kerzenziehen am Solothurner Weihnachtsmarkt | Wed 16 Dec – Sun 20 Dec5 days | — | confirmed |
Calculated from the ConvivaPlus dataset — every row with its own source above.
🚋 Transport & access with stop
- Meeting point
- Reformierte Stadtkirche Solothurn, Westringstrasse 14, 4500 Solothurn
- Nearest stop
- Solothurn, Amthausplatz (BUS) — 140 m as the crow flies
- Meeting point
- Soledurner Wiehnachtsmäret, Solothurn
Coordinates © swisstopo · Stops: opentransportdata.swiss (FOT)
📋 Good to know before you go
- Only the start of each day is published, not a closing time — if you come late, call ahead.
- Contact, per the organiser, by text message only: 079 713 58 78.
- The period is taken verbatim from the parish's call for volunteers of 8 September 2026 («vom 16.12.2026-20.12.2026»). Opening hours and the exact spot within the market were not yet published for 2026 as of 11 September 2026; the details of the 2023 edition are not carried forward here.
✨ Highlights on site
What sets this candle-dipping session apart is not in its run dates.
This survey holds exactly 47 sessions with a documented date, and not one of them starts later than Solothurn. The market stall opens at a point in the season when wax pots are being cleared away elsewhere — four days before Christmas Eve. If you realise in December that candle dipping slipped past you this year, you still have a chance here and almost nowhere else.
The second point is the more interesting one, and it appears on no date list: these are two events of the same parish, yet they work in opposite ways. In the church a child has space, quiet and a whole afternoon; the wax pot stands in the worship space itself, and the parish points out that this is the case again in 2026. At the market the dipping is part of a bigger operation — one stall among others, with everything that entails. The same craft, two radically different afternoons.
And then there is the sentence no aggregator ever reprints, because it makes the entry look weaker: the market stall depends on volunteers. On 8 September 2026 the parish published an appeal in which it states plainly that without enough helpers it will not go ahead. So we carry the run with its source — and the caveat in plain sight, not in the small print.
Which of the two Solothurn sessions would be yours?
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🎯 Practical tips for your visit
Two events, two planning logics. What to know before setting off for Solothurn.
- 1The start is published, the end is notFor the church the parish gives only a start time for each day: Tuesday to Friday 14:00, Saturday and Sunday 11:00. No closing time is published anywhere. If you can only come late in the afternoon, ask rather than rely on a figure that does not exist.
- 2Contact runs by text message, not by phone callFor the candle dipping the parish explicitly gives a number for text messages: 079 713 58 78. If you call and reach nobody, you have the right number and the wrong channel.
- 3The market stall needs a phone call firstFor the Wiehnachtsmäret stall the run is documented, but neither the opening hours nor the exact spot in the market were published as of 11 September 2026. We do not carry forward the 2023 details — if you need to plan firmly, ask the parish.
- 4Beeswax means allowing more timeThe church dips in beeswax. A thick candle needs more passes than with paraffin — the afternoon becomes a programme in its own right, not a stop between errands.
📊 Season comparison with nearby places
Where this session sits in the season — and which neighbour has already closed when it opens.
Each bar is a documented run. Dark = this session, pale = the nearest ones. Read a single date and you miss that the neighbouring village has already packed up when the wax here is only just warming.
- SolothurnKerzenziehen in der reformierten Stadtkirche Solothurn · Kerzenziehen am Solothurner Weihnachtsmarkt
- BernBE
🗺️ Nearby sessions
The canton of Solothurn holds 2 candle-dipping sessions in our dataset — both in the cantonal capital, both run by the same parish. The first documented day in the canton is 24 November 2026.
Of 58 sessions recorded across Switzerland, 47 carry a documented date, and 19 of the 26 cantons are covered so far. The densest day of the season is 2 December 2026 with 26 sessions running at once; on the first Solothurn dipping day, 19 others are running outside the town. If Solothurn does not fit, the densest week in Switzerland is ahead of you, not behind.
Candle dipping nearby
❓ FAQ — answered
Answers from the verified dataset – no date carried over from last year.
People also ask
Related questions from our magazine
The Solothurn stall runs to 20 December, Basel's Barfüsserplatz to 23 December, and on the Uetliberg dipping continues into the new year. The large majority of sessions end earlier.
Solothurn dips inside the town church itself again in 2026. That is the exception: most parishes move into parish houses, halls or marquees.
In Solothurn the organiser says it plainly: without enough helpers the Wiehnachtsmäret stall will not happen. What a cancellation looks like in practice is shown by Thalwil, where candle dipping does not take place at all in 2026.
The ConvivaPlus verdict
For families around Solothurn this is a rare constellation: two dates in the same town, under the same organisation, yet completely different in character. If you need quiet and space for small children, take the church in late November.
Freshness note: For the church the parish publishes start times only, no closing times. For the Wiehnachtsmäret stall the opening hours and the exact location remain open for 2026; the 2023 details are NOT carried forward here. Checked: 11 September 2026.
Check the latest: ConvivaPlus candle-dipping dataset 2026 – Solothurn →
- ◆The opening hour shifts with the weekend: Tuesday to Friday 14:00, Saturday and Sunday 11:00. If you have the weekday time in mind and turn up at two on a Saturday, you have lost three hours.
- ◆A date for late deciders: 28 of the season's 47 events have already started before.
- ◆The period spans 2 weekends – miss one and there is still a second.
How we check
Every date comes from the organiser's, the municipality's or the canton's own site — never from an aggregator, never copied over from last year. Next to each source is the date we last read it.
Something missing or changed? A note below is enough; we check it at the source.
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The Reformed parish of Solothurn dips twice in 2026: six days in the town church (24–29 November, in beeswax) and five days as a stall at the Soledurner Wiehnachtsmäret (16–20 December). No session in our survey starts later than that stall.
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🕯️ Candle dipping · 11 September 2026