A Homespun Christmas Series, Part 4: The Scent of Christmas

What smells do you associate with Christmas? For my older daughter, it is obviously the smell of cinnamon and cloves because every time I have baked something with those spices this past year, she has exclaimed: “It smells like Christmas!”

In addition to the smell of spices that I associate with Christmas baking (you can find one of my favorite Christmas cookie recipes here), the smell of oranges takes me back to my childhood. My mom usually bought a big box of citrus fruit from a neighbor in the FFA program, and the fruit would arrive in early December. We also had candles burning more than normal during the Christmas season, and my older brothers liked to squirt the orange oil from the orange peeling into the candle flame. Candles and the scent of oranges are forever etched into my memory as part of Christmas, too. And at the end of the post, I will share with you one other scent that takes me back to my childhood Christmas celebration experience.

Last night, as I was looking through one of my many 3-ring binders of recipes to find a friend’s peach cobbler recipe, I came across this page with perforated edges of the computer paper of that era. In my early teens, I had found this recipe in a magazine and typed and printed it—I have had it in my collection for nearly 30 years!

I think the recipe was from the Taste of Home magazine or one of the other magazines owned by Reiman publications at the time. If you want to find some other similar recipes, you can visit this link: https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/homemade-christmas-potpourri-ideas/

Even before I was an adult, I had a longing to create beauty and comfort in the home. And although my mom and I had conflicting ideas about how to do things when I was growing up (I think I will be reliving that experience with my own daughters), my Mom has always had a way of making home a wonderful, welcoming place to be.

This fall, I ordered a copy of Myquillyn Smith’s book Welcome Home, which I highly recommend. She talks about appealing to all of the senses when decorating a home. There are so many smells that I associate with the coziness of home. The scent of pine evokes a mental image of my mom doing fall cleaning with Pine-sol cleaner; I associate getting home from school with the smell of freshly baked chocolate cookies…

As I have been thinking about the smells of home, I decided that I wanted to be more intentional with the scents of the seasons in our home from now on.

And so, in November, I started diffusing some essential oils with scents that remind me of fall. Thieves, orange, and lemon oils combined together reminded me of a cup of Constant Comment tea.

My husband rarely comments on things I do around the house, but after I started diffusing these oils, he walked in from walking the dog one morning, and asked: “What are you doing to make the house smell so good?” I had placed the diffuser right beside the door, and the smell greeted him when he opened the door.

Because I want to have a unique scent for each season, I decided to change to a more winter-like smell in December. I started diffusing these three oils together. The change is subtle, but the spruce oil gives it a little more woodsy scent.

And this week, in addition to diffusing the three oils pictured above, I started simmering a potpourri similar to the recipe at the beginning of the post in my Instant Pot in the kitchen. I put water, mulling spices, some cranberries, and orange peel (I simply drop orange peel or lemon peel into the pot after peeling the fruit to eat or juice) into the Instant Pot. Occasionally, I bring it to a boil with the saute function, and then switch it to the keep warm mode for a while, leaving the lid off, of course! And I keep an eye on the water level to make sure that it doesn’t get too low. The smell of this combination transported me back in time because it smells like a store that I associate with Christmas shopping. One of the fun family traditions that we had when I was growing up was that my parents would take us to the Valley Mall one evening in December. We would eat dinner at Country Cookin’ (eating out was a really special thing for us), and then Mom and Dad would give each of us some money to go do our Christmas shopping in the mall. There was a store called Lock, Stock, and Barrel if I am recalling it correctly, and the smell of it has stuck with me throughout my life. So, as my potpourri simmered as I worked in the kitchen, I remembered those happy evenings in December of dining out and shopping with my family.

The lovely, natural smells that are present in our home currently make me breathe more deeply. (Most scented candles give me headaches so I need these more natural options). The uplifting fragrance of the orange combines with the warm and cozy spices and brings comfort to the cold, winter season.

Please leave a comment below to let me know what your favorite scents of the season are!

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