Sunday, November 13, 2011

Ahh....The Smell of Christmas, Cheap & Cheerfully.

I love, love the smell of Christmas. I used to splurge during the holidays and buy a Gold Canyon candle. I would usually get 2, one for the fall and one for Christmas.

For the last several years I have been making my own mulling spices to simmer on the stove. I love it cause I can turn it on and let it summer and it fills the whole house, just not where the candle is.

It also make GREAT Christmas presents. I make a batch and then package it up in little plastic bags (the craft ones that are like ziploc bags), you can use a ziploc bag or a cute little container. You don't need to worry about it being food safe since you aren't consuming it.

To be completely honest I kind of dump and add. I don't measure anything. I do that a lot in cooking also! ha ha Hey it spices things up!

But here is a picture and a list of what I dump and add....


Random Spices;

Cinnamon ( I prefer sticks, but either works)
Nutmeg
Cloves (I prefer the whole ones, but either works)
Ginger
Allspice
Orange peels
Lemon peels

When I am just putting a pot together at home I usually just use the ground up spices and I use just like dollar store or cheapy spices. For the orange and lemon peel I use dehydrated for gift giving (buy at Sprouts in their bulk spices, or you can buy at the grocery store but I think they cost more). When I use them at home I cut away the orange part (Yum....and share it with Kyle!) and then cut the fresh orange peel into smaller pieces. I then lay out the other half of peel to dry. Once dry I keep them in a bag in the fridge to use when I don't have fresh oranges.





If I am just making a batch at home I dump it right into the pan. I have an old beat up pan we inherited when we got married. One of my husbands bachelor pans...ha ha perfect for a mulling spice pan. I full it up and let it simmer. I just keep it on the back burning. As the water gets low I just add more. It lasts a long time before I dump it and make some more. Sometimes if I just want to "freshen" it up I have a big container of nutmeg so I will just throw a little extra of that in.

I made these with cute little glittery tags for Christmas a couple years ago to give out to all Kyle's docs and nurses at the oncology clinic. They all loved them!!! I love love to give these as gifts. When making it for gifts I use try to use cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, "real" dehydrated orange and lemon peels. But you can of course use ground cinnamon, and you could include some of your own dehydrated orange or lemon. You could even on purpose slice lemons and oranges to dehydrate decoratively and include in the little bag of mulling spices.

Until you make your own....enjoy the picture of mine from this morning. My house smelled divine this morning!!!!


I would love to hear your Cheap and Cheerful ideas for making the house homey and feel like Christmas and what you do for Cheap and Cheerful Christmas ideas!!