The Smell of Christmas

I have had this urge in the past week to make the house smell like Christmas. I think this is because I remember my own Christmases growing up so fondly. Connor relies much more on his sense of smell and touch than I ever did, because of his poor vision and hearing, so I want to give the holiday season an identifying scent. We don't have a Christmas tree this year due to our traveling plans, and bringing anything green into the house has been vetoed by the cat. Somehow, even with the stockings up and the nativity set out, it doesn't seem like Christmas-- it's just missing something.

So this weekend, in a new tradition we'll probably keep, we made a gingerbread house.

I've made gingerbread before, but never a gingerbread house, and certainly never from scratch. We modeled it after our own house and ended up having a blast making it. Jer and I stayed up far too late adding candy details (such as trashcans-- for realism, Jer said), laughing, and just having a grand old time.

Surprisingly, the cats have left it alone. Apparently gingerbread isn't as appealing as ceramic.

When we were finished, I put the house in the middle of the dining room table, and there it's sat for the last three days, filling the whole house with the scent of gingerbread. I woke up this morning, walked out in the livingroom, stopped and closed my eyes...

...and there it was. Christmas at last.

~Jess