Filed under: Miscellanea
It has come to my attention that the manufacturers of candles and bath products have completely the wrong idea about how Christmas smells. They seem to be under the impression that it smells like minty things, and pine trees, and far too much cinnamon. They are wrong. For their education, and yours, Dear Reader, I present a definitive list of The Four Elements Of Which Christmas Really Smells.
Proper Christmas Trees
By this, of course, I mean sensible plastic ones that have been gathering dust in the cupboard all year. For real authenticity, the plastic should have that smell of having been ever so slightly baked by the heat. All issues of hemisphere-appropriateness aside, the idea of a tree being chopped down dead to wither slowly under pretty lights seems – well, mean. I’m a sentimental creature (probably particularly so following the recent death of my tomato plant from blatant neglect).
Tinsel and Chocolate Orange
Many know the delicate aroma of rustly metalic plastic. The real trick, however, is to infuse it – and all the decorations for your plastic tree – with the delicious scent of Terry’s Chocolate Orange. I can’t remember which particular decorations lived in an empty box of the aforementioned citrusy delight, but that’s what they smelt like, and that’s what all Christmas decorations should smell like. Always.
Actually, everything ever should probably smell like this.
Essence of Verandah
AKA mosquito coils and timber. Particularly evocative teamed with a hint of sizzling moth fresh from the beckoning, deadly blue light of the mozzie zapper and the dull almost-reek of overripe mangos from the tree in the backyard.
Christmas Beetles
This is something of a catch-all. What I mean by the smell of Christmas beetles is that whiff of summer at night – cut grass and sweaty hair and expanding corrugated roofing and the cool side of the pillowcase and excitement. It’s hard to say that all in one go when you’re six, or nine, or twenty-eight. Therefore: that’s what Christmas beetles smell like.
Mmm! Intangible!
There. Put those in a candle, and I’ll buy it.
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Amy Tries Again 
Excellent read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing some research on that. And he just bought me lunch because I found it for him smile So let me rephrase that: Thank you for lunch! “We steal if we touch tomorrow. It is God’s.” by Henry Ward Beecher.
Comment by redbubble coupon code May 8, 2013 @ 12:36 PM