The Scent of Christmas

A few years back, we finally gave in and bought a fake Christmas tree.  It was a close-out, after-Christmas deal, and we had a ton of trouble finding a live tree in our price range that year, so we decided to move on.  The next Christmas, instead of looking in a lot, we pulled out our plastic tree and set it up.  You know what?  It wasn't all that bad!  No frozen toes or dismay at prices at the tree lot, or worrying about how long the tree would last before becoming a fire hazard and picking needles out of the carpet until spring.  But what I really did miss was the smell - that fantastic, irreplaceable aroma of fresh pine that reminded me of childhood and ushered Christmas into the house.  I love that smell!

Two days ago we hauled the fake tree out of the basement.  The first thing that I noticed when I walked into the living room after the tree had been set up, was that it does indeed have a smell.  It filled the room with it's own aroma - it smells like fresh plastic.  You know, the way a new toy smells, just out of the box.  And so my natural irony concluded that perhaps it is appropriate that a heavily commercialized holiday should smell like plastic!  Imagine it now - Plastic scented holiday candles, plastic scented potpourri.  They wouldn't call it "plastic," but instead, "the true scent of Christmas."  Out with pine and cinnamon - let them go the way of wassail and sleigh rides, nostalgia for times past that mostly just live in songs.  There is a new tradition in the making!  What do you think?  What other scents could be added to my new line of "True Scent" holiday candles?