christmas scent

Some of my favorite things about this season are the smells!  Cinnamon, citrus, pies baking, candies being made . . . oh, darn it!  Now I have to clean the drool out of my keyboard!!

I love to have the scent of Christmas in the house even on days when my projects include less fragrant things, like sewing, cleaning, or dejunking in preparation for more junk crap stuff.  So, I like to make up some Christmas Scent and let it fill the house.

There are several variations of this, most of them are close to the same, but here is my version:

Christmas Scent:
1 lemon, sliced
1 orange, sliced
4 cinnamon sticks
4 bay leaves
2 tablespoons whole cloves
4 cups water

First, slice up your lemon:

and orange.

Then, add the bay leaves (they don't have to be organic, but that was the only bottle I could find with whole bay leaves in it.)

What the . . . ?  Why would they include a sprinkling strainer on a bottle of whole bay leaves?

Anyway, add your bay leaves:

Now, add 2 tablespoons of whole cloves, once again with a sprinkling strainer that can't possibly do anything but tease you with the smell of what's inside!

Last, pull out 4 sticks of cinnamon:

Finally!  A reasonable lid!

Throw all the ingredients into a crock pot:

Add 4 cups of water:

Turn your crock pot on low:

And enjoy the scent that will fill your home!

This same pot of ingredients can be used again and again.  You just have to put them in the fridge when they're not being heated to avoid molding (because that's not a good smell!)

As you heat the mixture, the water will evaporate.  I like to just throw the lid on to help slow that process:

It'll stifle the smell a little bit, but with four little troublemakers running around, I tend to forget to check the water levels. 

When the water level gets low, just add more water and keep enjoying the scent!

Feel free to throw all the dry ingredients in a jar with the directions, and give these away as gifts to teachers, neighbors, and friends.