Tis the Season! So, thinking about Christmas…I thought about some of the products we used to sell many years ago…maybe 15 or 2o years. We had a line of hand-dipped candles…with Holly berry, Pine and other scents….about 5 or 6 different simmering spices…including Blueberry – remember those little pots we all had with a candle to boil our simmering spices??
We had 12 different Potpourri’s including our Best Seller; Seasons Greetings. We would go out into the woods and collect lots of cedar boughs, and dry them in our little dehydrator…collect rose hips from our rugosa roses, cedar tips…and in the forest…we would collect small hemlock cones…..we would add cinnamon sticks…some allspice berries, and toss them all together and put them in little bags with red ribbons and a holly berry scent. We sold 1000′s of little bags each year.
Then, from the Orient came little and big bags of Christmas Potpourri….with dried artifical flowers, wood shavings dyed in bright colors..and lots and lots and lots of (I thought cheap) festive fragrances. So, with a much bigger bag..and lots more scent….they kind of took over the potpourri business and it went right down hill and disappeared….
Also, we had Mulling Spice….sold 1000′s of those too….a mixture of spices, a cinnamon stick or two, and instructions for adding it to hot apple juice, red wine or other spirits…or just throwing it in pot and making the whole house smell like home used to in the ’50′s maybe when I grew up!
So, a while ago, looking through some old boxes at the workshop, we found THE MULLING SPICE LABELS! So, just for fun, ordered a bunch of fresh new spices, bagged them up, and here we are.
They are the perfect hostess gift, make the house smell lovely, and can actually be added to all those things to make hot mulled cider, juice or wine for the festive season. I have been carrying around a basketful in my car, and have given out dozens already…what a nice, small, inexpensive, handmade, local, lovely gift….(even if I do say so myself) Wasn’t sure how introducing something from the past like this would work…but it did!
Glad I mulled this one over!
Christmas Greetings!
Linda Quiring
