Originally posted December 13, 2013.
Every year around the holidays I go a little nutty. Nostalgia paired with an obsessiveness for perfection completely overcomes me. The moment Thanksgiving dinner is over, I can listen to Christmas music for month straight without stopping and my tiny New York apartment begins to resemble the set of The North Pole from the movie Elf.
This definitely stems from my childhood. As a kid, we did Christmas really big in my family. The first weekend of December, to my Mother’s delight and the rest of the family’s annoyance, we’d often spend an entire day shopping for a perfect tree. Once we finally settled on something, and after tying and untying the damn thing to the car roof, carrying it up the stairs and getting it into the elevated tree stand, my father would have to spend a good hour stringing the lights from a ladder while my mother watched and directed him from below. Then, as a family, we would dig out all the Christmas stuff from the basement closet and decorate the house and the tree. To many, this probably sounds normal but I assure you, it was not. That’s because my mother was completely obsessed with Christmas.
Anytime she traveled anywhere, my mother would come home with something Christmas-y. It could be July in the Caribbean and she could still sniff out Christmas junk. When she traveled to Russia and Germany, she had to ship back all the nutcrackers, dolls and ornaments she’d bought. She was also a flea market junk collector & reseller in Ohio; we saw some seriously weird stuff come through our house. Anyway, between all of her traveling, flea-ing and estate sale-ing, we had a pretty remarkable amount of Christmas stuff. Our family gladly hosted many extended-family Christmases, which for me meant family (yay!), more presents (yay!), and sleeping in my parents’ walk-in closet (also yay!) We hosted a slew of office holiday parties as well. We would decorate, clean and prepare for what felt like a week. Every year of my childhood, Christmas was magical. And every year we had more Christmas stuff.
Sadly, as children do, we grew up and I guess Christmas lost it’s luster. My older sister moved out for college, and my mother passed away. Christmas without her wasn’t the same. During my college years, I had to move every 3 months for internships and therefore never really settled down.. certainly not enough to decorate. After graduating college in 2009, I moved to New York City and for the very first time, I bought my own Christmas tree with my roommate. We didn’t have any ornaments or lights (or money), so we bought a couple cheap strands of white lights from Duane Reade and decorated the tree by cutting up some leftover printed wedding invitations I’d designed for my sister. It was nice; it would be the first of many Christmases I spent in New York. My new home. The following summer, my dad was cleaning out the house and was completely overwhelmed with the amount of Christmas junk our family had accumulated. That fall, he sent me a couple boxes of ornaments and decorations, and it reawakened something. I couldn’t wait for Christmas. I couldn’t wait to decorate my new home with all the crazy stuff my mother had collected. And I did–and I still do.
Now Denny and I have our own Christmas traditions. After many beers one night, we decided we wanted some of our “own” ornaments and took to eBay. I think we spent $100 drunk eBaying for ornaments and creepy vintage Christmas stuff (thus completing the transformation of turning into my mother.) And true to my family’s tradition, we bought a tree during the first weekend of December. We didn’t spend an entire day looking for one, but we did spend a good forty minutes carrying it home 10 (city) blocks. Denny carried it up our forth floor walk-up, and strung the lights while I directed him. We listened to National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation while decorating the tree and sucking down IPA like it was our jobs. We then brewed up one of my very favorite things in the whole wide world: smellgood.
Hopefully I’ve still got your attention and now you’re wondering… “Hmmm… What the hell is ‘smellgood‘?” Let me explain. Smellgood is another (ahem, my) word for stovetop potpourri. Gone are the days you need a Holiday scented candle! Because when you fire up a pot of smellgood, it will smell like you’ve been baking all day in a pine forest. I’m not exaggerating! All you need is a couple ingredients, an old pot and you’re good to go.
Ingredients:
- Pine tree branches: tree lots will have these by the heap. They are usually free with a tree/wreath purchase, but if you just happen to be walking by somewhere offer them a couple bucks for a bundle.
- Cinnamon sticks: we always buy the industrial sized because the smaller sized jar/package is only good for one batch.
- Cloves: one normal sized jar of cloves will be fine.
- A couple oranges: don’t bother with organic or worry about how good it looks; you won’t be eating it.
Bonus: vanilla extract, nutmeg, and fresh cranberries. I’ve seen so many variations; all said and done, you can’t really go wrong.
Instructions: Fill a large pot with water and begin to warm on high heat. Take one or two of your pine branches and cut them down to fit your pot. Don’t discard anything; even if the branch doesn’t have needles, it has sap which is a key ingredient for smellgood! Throw all your pine scraps into the pot and bring water to a boil. Now cut your oranges into quarters, peel them and throw the peels into the water. Once the water is boiling, throw in 5 or 6 cinnamon sticks and 10 or 12 cloves into the mix. Let the mixture boil for five minutes, then reduce heat to low and let it simmer. You’re done!
I usually leave the mixture brewing for an hour at a time; just watch the water level. You can reuse the mixture for about a week before the scents dissipate. You can totally use old pine branches too; we always cut a couple off the tree before taking it somewhere to be mulched. Enjoy!
