The holiday season is filled with beauty. Everywhere I look, there it is. I’ll be writing about different types of beauty throughout this month, but I wanted to start with fragrance in today’s post.

We don’t typically think of the sense of smell as a way of experiencing beauty. But what a gift it is! And it heightens the beauty of the Christmas season for me.

Our house smells heavenly this time of year. I recently wrote about the fragrance of fall, and Christmas brings many new scents to add to those. Here are a few of my favorites:

The Christmas tree, of course. We usually get a fraser fir. I love the smell that greets me when I come downstairs or walk in from outside. Live wreaths, garlands, and greens intensify that evergreen fragrance.
Some of our Christmas décor is scented with cinnamon. I have a vintage bread bowl of my aunt’s that sits on the kitchen island, and I often fill it with small pine cones, cinnamon sticks, and tiny gold balls.
Candles! I have two perennial go-tos: Hot Apple-Spiced Toddy (cinnamon again, paired with apple) and Balsam, a crisp, fresh woodsy smell.
I buy seasonal hand soaps, so whenever you wash your hands at our house, you smell festive too.
Seasonal lotions are sold everywhere right now, but my favorite year-round lotion is orange ginger. It seems especially appropriate when the temperature turns cold, and there's always a bottle or two under the tree for me.
I’m not a coffee lover, as I’ve mentioned before, but my husband and daughter are, and I enjoy the scent of their peppermint and vanilla latte flavors.
This year, I'm drinking hot tea every day, so I bought Christmas Morning to wake me up and Christmas Eve for dessert, both from Stash Tea Company. As a real indulgence, I like hot chocolate with chai. (It's easy to make: just steep the chai teabag in the hot chocolate for one minute). The smell of these drinks is almost as good as the flavor to me.

I think the holiday season would not be as beauty-filled if it weren’t for special fragrances like these. I'm going to have hot chocolate to celebrate. Join me?

What about you? What are your favorite holiday/Christmas season scents? Do you agree that the sense of smell helps us experience beauty?

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