Making your home smell like Christmas

[Acornhat]

I used to love candles but toddler dd does not get on well with them, and I miss having a lovely smelling home. So I was wondering how do you make your house smell nice at Christmas?
I saw a post on tik tok about putting cinnamon and orange in the slow cooker which I like the sound of.

The Festive Spice range at Next is amazing!

I use diffusers (one in the hall by the front door, one in the conservatory and one upstairs on the landing).

last year I also put some festive scented oil on cotton wool and put that inside the radiators but it was too strong to start with so wouldn’t try it again.

I also light candles when LO is in bed.

Quite often, if you leave a scented candle somewhere fairly warm, it will smell even when it’s not lit. I’ve got one on a shelf above a radiator and always notice the smell when I walk in the room.
Glade and Airwick do some festive scents. I’ve currently got a nice pumpkin spiced one for my plug in diffuser.
Last year I got some Christmas scented hanging wardrobe sachets from Primark. I hung their ‘Nordic spruce’ scent on the back of our artificial Christmas tree!

Use wax melts.

There os less smoke as it only uses a tealight, and you can more easily find some that aren't too over-powering. Most wax melt sellers also make their melts paraben and phalate free (essentially it means they're chemical free which means they're better for you).

They're also a shit tonne cheaper. A 20 pack box from where I shop will cost £12 and last me an entire month when they're burnt every day. A candle costing the same price would last, maybe, two days.

I'm very sensitive to chemical smells, scented candles tend to give me asthma.

It turns out that pure essential oils do not have the same effect, (some of "fragrance oils" do so I suspect they contain added extras).

I have amassed a hoard of essential oil bottles, and during Christmas I like to add a few drops of orange or blood orange oil, along with a single drop of clove oil, a drop of cinnamon oil, with Frankincense and myrrh. I sometimes use a drop of Cypress oil too, but not pine needle oil, which I had high hopes for but which turned out be be more reminiscent of toilet cleaner than Christmas.

Currently the diffuser is puffing out little wafts of rosemary, lavender, bergamot, and white grapefruit, trying to wake myself up a bit.

On the Christmas bargains thread loads of people say these are good - candle warmer lamps. They seem to heat up and melt the candle with no flame - maybe better for your little one?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/JEKEMORYE-Candle-Warmer-Lamp-Timer/dp/B0FCSP4DDV/ref=sr_1_6?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.RcUe8kRc5A_mtIH7Ux8C6JHg_4isZ51l1xeAJZULM1sJKfwT8EzJrR7RlzjQ_LBls8-0IzHn6sZtXeVhYaYjdX9OaBAHt8s-3RCLAF9pRt1xjDZ-l9hjXIFmCOodjmlc2tINUUfZOWruGiylu6TCZmH-Vjad7qjlXhirNkLn0Ueye8gcmJN488kX7qJCmQxf8HB20JQNhV949hmvHqAkLDVUK5LOYQxjLk_X_hssOqgFOAciPN7bzA9qMciJU_nxgPVYOD6-D6GkFs7ST3d_opT8ZnYT0iyB9Eq703Z1KOI.TBl_go-wLzzKYtRMmlb9NaR2tem4q7O9TkFuNHTvrzI&dib_tag=se&keywords=candle+warmer&qid=1760017443&sr=8-6

Prices seem to go up and down on Amazon and there are lots of different ones on there

I'm obsessed with house scents.

In the evening I put some fragrance dust from Perfume Parlour on an electric wax melt burner (or a candle one). You can get your favourite fragrances or just ones that smell nice in a home. I like Coral Sky, Oud Lime and Hijaz in Winter (Hijaz is a dupe of Serge Lutens Arabie which is like a rich, dark, sticky fruit cake.) You only need a tiny amount so the container lasts for ages.

Every morning I burn a Prem incense stick from the Mothers India Incense line - if they had a festive one I'd stockpile like a shot because these are not your ordinary incense sticks and they smell divine.

From mid December evenings on I light a large St Eval candle in either Winter Thyme or Inspiritus. They also do these scents as reed diffusers as well (plus ones called Figgy Pudding, Sacred Forest and Orange & Cinnamon) They genuinely waft the smell about too, which can't be said of a lot of candles/diffusers. Plus you can buy diffuser refills to keep the cost down. The big candle is a treat to myself for Christmas and once the candle has burnt down there's enough left at the sides/bottom to break up and use as wax melts for the early December of the following year!

I lop bits off the christmas tree and stick them behind the radiators in rest of the house which does seem to waft some fir ambiance around!

I have an essential oil diffuser & I have a lovely Christmas essential oil that I put in it.

Simmer pot on the aga - cut up orange add to a pan on water along with cloves cinnamon and lemon. Let it simmer away and the smell fills the entire downstairs. People always comment on it. Be careful not to let it boil dry when having a few drinks. I may or may not have done this 👀

DH is sensitive to scented candles, even the fanciest ones, so I tend to put together little bowls of oranges stuck with cloves, and cinnamon sticks, and leave them about the place. (You can dry the oranges but they look better fresh and you just replace them after a while.) If you have an Indian supermarket or similar nearby you can get massive bags of the spices very cheaply.

Why would you fill your home with what are often nasty chemicals that you're then breathing in? I stayed in an airbnb and the day after I left I could still smell the reed diffuser scent on my hair, it had literally coated it. They're also really bad for pets who will be licking those chemicals off their fur.

We make oranges with cloves OP, they don't last forever but they look great, it's a family activity (young kids might struggle though) and they smell lovely.

Winter room spray from the White Company!

I’ve just bought myself a Scandiscents electric diffuser and they have loads of Xmas scents: https://www.scandiscents.com/a/collections/browse?filters=festive

I’m so impressed with it I ordered another 10 to give as Xmas presents.

Get the sprouts on, that should do it.

Good old classic oranges stuffed with cloves hung all over the place. Shoots me right back to my childhood Christmases.

Candles and smelly things are fine...

But no substitute for actual cooking on Christmas eve/Christmas day.

A pot of simmering mulled wine on the stove, ready to drink, nice a spiced.. that does the trick. Or something baked, mince pies, coming out, filling the house with smells etc.

😂

Scentsicles are quite nice as long as you don't get the pine ones as they make your house smell like the loo https://amzn.eu/d/34K7szz - edit for typo of name of product.

My mother made a pomander in 1966 aged 10 and it is still going today and brought out at Christmas time. The entire surface of the orange was covered in cloves. She recallla having very sore fingers but surprising longevity!

You beat me to it. I get the diffuser every year.

What consumables are there? It mentions cartridges and straws.

I can’t work out what it actually does. Is it effectively like having a scented cloth on the radiator? Comes on and warms the oils for a specific period?

I’ve got an electric diffuser and use ‘winter’ by the white company in it every day in the kitchen.

I have previously had a Yankee candle advent calendar which actually worked so well, a little festive tea light every night in the evening. I might get one this year too actually.

like the poster above linked, get a candle warmer if you don’t want candle flames

I get a real Christmas tree in mid December. Job done!

Use the White Company Winter range - they have reed diffusers, oil and candles.

Do you have a photo? I can’t quite imagine what you mean