I love Christmas… like, really love Christmas.  I love the lights, the music, the warm feeling that comes with all the love in the air, the smells, the wrapping of gifts, and of course the celebration of Christ.  And if there was a way to actually bottle all of it up into a jar – to open any time of the year – I would either do it myself or buy it from someone that figured it out!  But I guess that’s part of what makes the holidays so special… that they only come around once a year.

And while I’m a stickler for not decorating for Christmas (or even listening to Christmas music!) before the day after Thanksgiving, it doesn’t mean I can’t start planning before Thanksgiving!  In fact, our Christmas cards were made and ordered a couple of weeks ago!  I’ve never been on top of something for Christmas that far in advance…

Last year, our community group leaders gave us these cute little jars with a note attached saying to simmer on the stovetop for the most amazing scent.  And you better believe that I had the contents of that jar on our stove every day after that!  It was Christmas in a jar!!  So I emailed her for the recipe (because I would feel bad asking her to give it to us again every year for the next 50 years) and have been hanging onto it ever since.  The original recipe is here, but she didn’t have any pictures in her post so I wasn’t able to pin it.  So this post is partly for my own benefit as well as yours.  Now I’ll know where to find it every year AND I took pictures so all of us can pin it to Pinterest!  And to be honest, I’ll probably go find it on Pinterest next year instead of combing through my blog ;-)

So, this recipe has a few adjustments from the original but it’s all still pretty much the same.  Enjoy!

Recipe
1 pint jar
small fabric scrap
1 piece of twine/jute/ribbon
2 lemon wedges
2 orange slices
1 lime slice
2 tablespoons of whole cloves
2 cinnamon sticks*
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 teaspoon of nutmeg
3 bay leaves

*(can be substituted with 1 cinnamon stick and some ground cinnamon)

Write or type these instructions onto a tag to be tied to the jar:  “Pour contents into saucepan on stovetop and simmer on low heat, add water as needed. Return contents to jar and refrigerate to keep fresh.”

Then, all you do is cut up your fruit, measure everything else, and put it into a jar.  Fill it to the top with water and put on the lid, fabric scrap and screw on the top over it.  Use your choice of twine/jute/ribbon to tie on the instructions and voilà!  Super cute Christmas jar full of Christmas!  And the best part is that it won’t cost you more than a few dollars.  Enjoy!

Isn’t it the cutest??

And this is where I have the contents of the jar now… on my stovetop.  When I leave later to run errands, I’ll put everything back into the jar, fill it back to the top with water and place it in the fridge!  Then I’ll probably pull it back out again as soon as I get home.  Yes, I love it that much.

The winner of Monday’s giveaway is Phillip!  If you didn’t win, I still highly recommend picking up a copy of Aspire by Kevin Hall.  I promise you won’t be disappointed!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!