Whether ambiance or ambience, it spells special atmosphere.

While I was visiting with a friend yesterday, he mentioned as he was about to leave that he and his wife were going shopping for candles. I figured since we've had some high winds and storm season is upon us, they would be utilitarian, back-up lights for a possible, even probable, power outage. We had an outage, not far from their home, just the other night. He replied something like, "No, we enjoy dining by candlelight." BIG smile here. I gave him a mental high-five.

It has always been our family tradition during our thirty-eight years of marriage to serve dinners with a pleasantly set table: table cloth or runner, attractive placemats, sometimes charges that we brought back from France, cloth napkins and condiments go from bottles and jars to serving bowls, while enjoying that special atmosphere or mood  (ambiance/ambience) created by dimming the lights and/or candles lit at the table. Sometimes we add soft, relaxing music to the background, other times we enjoy quiet and the flicker of the fireplace as we share our thoughts and recaps of our days. In an atmosphere like that the food tastes even better, we eat slower and linger at the table.

I came across this great idea from Friends of Glass on Facebook. All you need is a glass cutter to repurpose regular or over-sized wine bottles to make a casual cluster of candles as center-piece luminaries, to create a special atmosphere or mood whether indoors or outdoors - the wind won't blow these candles out!