How to Make Your House Smell Like Christmas All December
For a Christmas simmer pot, put one sliced orange, three cinnamon sticks, a tablespoon of whole cloves, a small handful of cranberries, and a sprig of rosemary in a small saucepan, cover with water, bring it to a boil, then drop it to the lowest simmer and add a splash of water every hour or so. One pot scents the whole house for about six hours and you can reuse it for two or three days.
A few years ago I had people coming over on a Saturday in December and I did the thing I always did, which was light a candle about an hour before and hope for the best. They walked in and my house smelled like a Christmas candle sitting on top of the taco meat I’d made for lunch. Not cozy. I’m not going to lie, I was a little embarrassed!
So I started paying real attention to how my house actually smells in December, and after a couple of seasons of trying things (and one scent I had to completely give up, more on that at the bottom), I’ve landed on a system that works. It’s a simmer pot on the stove for the main floor, a candle in the living room at night, and a plug-in warmer in the rooms where I don’t want an open flame. Here’s exactly what I do!
1. The simmer pot recipe I use every year
This is the whole thing. It costs a few dollars and it beats any candle I’ve ever bought:
- 1 orange, sliced into rounds (peel on, always)
- 3 cinnamon sticks
- 1 tablespoon whole cloves
- a small handful of fresh cranberries
- 1 sprig of rosemary if I have it
- water to cover
Bring it to a boil, then drop it to the very lowest simmer your stove will hold and leave the lid off. That’s it. Within about ten minutes your kitchen smells like Christmas, and within thirty the whole main floor does!
The two things I’d change about how I started: I used to peel the orange because that felt tidier, and the peel is where all the good smell lives, so leave it on. And I used to dump in way more cloves than I needed. Cloves are strong! A tablespoon is plenty, and much more than that and it starts smelling like a dentist’s office instead of a holiday.
2. A small enamel saucepan you don’t mind leaving on the stove
Here’s the part I found out the expensive way: the pot gets stained. Orange and cloves simmering for six hours a day for a month will leave a ring, and I did not love learning that on my nice pot the first year!
So now I have a dedicated one. It took me a while to find a small saucepan that was actually cute enough to leave sitting out on the stove all month and not $60. This little enamel-on-steel one is well under $20, it’s a 1-quart so it fits the recipe above perfectly, and the enamel wipes clean. The turquoise is not remotely Christmas-y, which I decided I was fine with (it reads more vintage kitchen than holiday, and I like that it doesn’t have to go into storage in January).
3. Whole cloves
Buy these separately, not in the little grocery store jar, because you will go through them faster than you think if you’re simmering most days. This Frontier Co-op jar is 1.36 ounces of hand-selected whole cloves and it gets me through most of a season.
One thing I learned the hard way: whole cloves, not ground. Ground cloves turn the water muddy and cloudy and the smell goes flat within an hour. Whole ones keep releasing slowly, which is the entire point!
4. Cinnamon sticks
Same story. The grocery store sells you four cinnamon sticks for about $5 and I was going through three a day. These are 6-inch cassia sticks and you get 8 ounces, which is genuinely more cinnamon stick than I know what to do with, and I still use every single one of them! The leftovers go into the tiered tray, tied in a little bundle with twine, so nothing is wasted.
5. Topping it off (this is the step everyone skips)
This is the part that actually makes it work all day instead of for an hour. Every hour or so, add a splash of water. That’s the whole trick!
If the water gets low, the orange scorches, and burnt orange is a smell that does not go away. It doesn’t cook back out, you have to dump the pot and start over. So I set a repeating reminder on my phone for every hour from about 2pm on. It feels a little silly to need a phone alarm to remember a pot on your own stove, but I have a small daughter and I promise you I forget!
When I’m done for the day, I let it cool and put the whole thing in the fridge overnight. The next afternoon I reheat the same batch. You’ll get two or three days out of one orange before it starts to look sad and it’s time to start fresh.
6. A balsam candle for the evening
The simmer pot is warm and spiced and sweet, which is perfect for daytime and for baking days. But at night I want the house to smell like a tree, not like a pie. So around dinner I turn the pot off and light one candle in the living room instead.
I have tried a lot of “Christmas tree” candles and most of them smell like pine cleaner! Balsam & Cedar is the one I keep going back to, and I buy the 22-ounce jar because the burn time is over 110 hours and one of them genuinely gets me through the whole season! I put it on the coffee table, on a little wood slice so the jar doesn’t get warm on the surface.
7. A plug-in warmer for the rooms I won’t put a flame in
There is no candle burning in my daughter’s room or in the hallway, ever! But I still want those spaces to smell like the rest of the house, so I use a little pluggable mason jar warmer. It’s a warmer, so no flame and no soot, and it rotates on the plug base so it sits right whether your outlet is vertical or horizontal (which sounds like a small thing until you’ve bought one that hangs sideways off the wall).
For the melts themselves I stick to plain balsam or a simple spiced-orange, so it layers with what’s happening in the kitchen instead of fighting it. I switch which room I plug it into every few days, mostly because your nose stops noticing a scent it lives with.
8. The one scent I had to quit
Sugar cookie. Specifically the bakery-type gourmand scents, the frosting and vanilla and warm-sugar ones. I bought a big jar of one my first year in Florida because it smelled incredible in the store, and after about two hours in a closed-up house I had a genuine headache. It happened again the next day and I finally connected it.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with those candles! Plenty of people love them. But they’re heavy and sweet in a way that has nowhere to go in a house with the windows shut, and the simmer pot already covers the warm-and-sweet end of things anyway. If a scent gives you a headache, that’s your answer, and there are about a hundred other ones. Y’all do not have to keep burning something just because it was expensive.
That’s the whole system, and it’s honestly not much work: a $3 pot of fruit and spices on the stove, one good candle at night, and a warmer where a flame doesn’t belong.
If you make a simmer pot this year, post it on instagram and tag me @sugardesignco. I want to see what you put in yours, especially if you’ve found something better than rosemary!
-Ciera
Made something with this? Tag me @sugardesignco — I love seeing them.
Questions I get asked
- How long does a Christmas simmer pot last?
- One pot runs about six hours before the orange starts smelling scorched instead of sweet. I keep the same batch in the fridge overnight and reheat it the next day, usually for two or three days total, then start over.
- Can I make a simmer pot in a slow cooker instead?
- Yes, and honestly it's safer if you have little ones. Put everything in on low with the lid off. It's quieter, it doesn't need topping off nearly as often, and there's no open burner.
- What can I use if I don't have cranberries?
- Skip them. Cranberries mostly add a little tartness that cuts the sweetness of the orange. A few slices of apple or a sprig of rosemary does about the same thing.
- Why does my simmer pot smell burnt?
- The water got too low. That's the whole trick with simmer pots, and it's why I set a phone reminder. If it does scorch, dump it and start over, because that smell will not cook back out.
