How to Make Your Home Smell Like Christmas
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If you want to make your home smell like Christmas, you’re in the right place! I have 7 tips – 7 different ways to make your home smell amazing for Christmas.
The tips are all so good, I can’t wait to share them with you!
But first things first… before we get into the tips, we need to take a deeper look into smell and why it matters so much in our homes!
I promise I’ll do my best to be brief, but smell is such a powerful thing. It’s worth taking a deeper look at “the why”!
Why Your Home’s Scent Matters
Your home’s smell is often overlooked, unless it’s a bad smell that is. But I would argue that smell shouldn’t be overlooked because it plays a huge role in making a house feel like home!
It’s been said that…
“Smells have a stronger link to memory and emotion than any of the other senses”.
– Ashley Hamer of discovery.com
In addition to that…
“studies have found that, when compared with memories triggered by other senses, odor-evoked memories tend to be more emotional and more likely to extend back earlier in one’s life.”
– Molly McDonough of The Magazine of Harvard Medical School
My take on all this, is that smell is especially important for parents raising young children.
The food we make, the laundry detergent we use, the candles we light… all of these scents and smells play a big role in shaping and forming our children’s earliest memories.
These smells will one day be the thing that brings our children back to their childhood… back to a happy moment, a hug from their mom, a Christmas morning running to see if Santa ate the cookies.
I realize this might come off as a little dramatic. But y’all, smell is so powerful!
And what a gift it is to recognize that now, so that we can be intentional about using smell in our homes as we create those special holiday memories for our children and our families!
7 Ways to Make Your Home Smell Like Christmas
I could go on, but I told you I’d be brief!
The short version is that smell plays a big role in our homes.
So let’s dive into the list… Here are 7 ways you can be intentional about bringing those holiday scents into your home this season.
1.) Heat a seasonal simmer pot on the stove.
I love a good simmer pot here at the farmhouse!
They’re one of the best ways to infuse your entire home with a seasonal aroma.
And there’s also just something so comforting and warm about a simmer pot bubbling away on the stove all day.
The scent of cinnamon and spice wafting through the air every time you walk into the kitchen and past the stove. It’s intoxicating!
If you’ve never tried making one, I highly recommend it!
And I have the best recipes for you to try. Head to this post for my 3 best Christmas simmer pot recipes!
Those seasonal simmer pot recipes will have you entire house smelling like Christmas all day long.
2.) Bake something sweet!
Baking something sweet like cookies, or even a pan of cinnamon rolls is a great way to make your home smell like the holidays!
And it doesn’t even have to be home-made.
Just grab some ready make cookie dough from the refrigerated section at the grocery store.
Or pop open a can of your favorite store bought cinnamon rolls.
Now your home smells amazing, and you can enjoy a sweet treat too! I call that a win-win!!
3.) Bring in real winter greenery!
Decorating with real live winter greenery is a great way to make your home look and smell like Christmas!
Whether you go with a live Christmas tree, a fresh cedar wreath, or even some greenery you clip from your backyard and display in a jar or vase…
Live greenery is a great way to bring life and a woodsy winter scent into your home for the holidays!
4.) Brew a warm beverage to enjoy.
Heat up a warm beverage like apple cider or hot cocoa! Nothing says Christmas quite like a mug of cocoa with a dollop of whipped cream…
I love the smell of hot cocoa. But when you make it in a mug you’re really the only one who can enjoy the chocolatey scent.
So rather than making just a cup, try heating it up a big batch in a crock pot!
That way everyone can enjoy a mug of cocoa throughout the day.
This is a great idea if you’re hosting for Christmas by the way!
The crock pot will keep the cocoa warm, but it will also allow the scent to fill the room. Then you can enjoy the flavor and the scent for as long as it lasts!
5.) Create your own seasonal potpourri.
I remember my mom having a big bowl of dried pot pourri in our house, and I always liked the smell of it!
But I wondered how it kept that same smell for so long. It never seemed to fade!
Lately I’ve been wanting to try making my own DIY pot pourri blend. I’ve had this idea on my list of projects for some time now!
Maybe we could do that together soon? I’ll be sure to update this post as soon as I get supplies together so stay tuned…
In the meantime, I found a few ready made scented potpourris that look beautiful and sound like they would smell amazing too.
Which Christmas scents are you usually drawn to?
6.) Make DIY cinnamon dough ornaments.
This tip is a fun one – and one that you can do with the kids too!
Have you ever made cinnamon dough ornaments?
They look like gingerbread cookies, and they smell good enough to eat! (Don’t do that though, there’s Elmer’s glue in the dough!!)
I made these gingerbread cookie ornaments a couple years back, and they still smell so good. The scent in lasts for years!! They smell a little sweet, very cinnamon-y…
I decorated ours to look like iced gingerbread cookies!
You can make your own DIY gingerbread ornaments with my cinnamon dough recipe! It’s so easy and you’ll be able to enjoy these cinnamon scented ornaments for years to come.
7.) Light a Christmas candle.
Lighting a Christmas scented candle is probably the easiest and fastest way to make your home smell like Christmas!
I’m a big fan of Antique Candle Co candles! They’re pretty much the only candles I burn in our home.
A couple things I love about them… They’re clean burning, unlike most the candles you find in stores.
The wax is white and they are poured in mason jars. So no matter how you decorate they blend in seamlessly.
Plus you can burn a pumpkin scent in July and not feel weird about it because it’s not orange! Or keep burning your Spiced Cranberry year round and not feel weird about it because it isn’t red.
Maybe this is just a me problem. Haha! But I feel weird burning seasonal candles out of season when they come in seasonal colors.
Since the wax is white, I feel like any scent could work in any season.
The biggest reason I love Antique Candle Co candles is because they’re smell aaahhh-mazing!
My top scents for Christmas time…
- Spiced Cranberry
- Christmas Day
- Clove and Pine
- Sugar Cookie
- Country Home
- Apple Butter
- Tree Farm
If you’ve never ordered from Antique Candle Co before, they do have a 100% scent happiness guarantee.
So if you try a scent and don’t love it, they’ll send you a different scent to try. They really care about customer happiness!
I hope today’s post gave you a new idea or two on how to make your home smell like Christmas this holiday season!
Smell plays such a big role in making our house feel like a home.
By being intentional with the scents in your home this season, you’re not only creating an inviting and festive atmosphere for Christmas, but you’re also helping to form and create those nostalgic holiday memories that will last a lifetime.
So try one (or all) of these ideas to make your home smell like Christmas this year. Happy holidays, and may your home be filled with warmth, joy, and wonderful scents!
Thanks for stopping by the blog today! Until next time…
