How to get the aroma of a live Christmas tree in your home

I have always loved the smell of a fresh-cut Balsam fir. Even with a live tree, I have never really gotten the aroma I remember from my childhood. 

My dad tells me my grandmother used to strip needles off the Balsam trees and make pillows for people. She actually made a little feedsack sachet for me filled with Balsam needles that still smells heavenly when I gently rub the needles together. 

In my attempt to get that scent, I always use lots of fresh branches from her trees in my Christmas decor.

But trying to find that Christmas tree aroma in a candle has been like looking for a needle in a haystack. I just could not find anything that really smelled like I wanted. I have tried lots of pine, fir, balsam, etc., scented candles, melts, only to find that they just smell more like cleaning formulas than an actual Balsam tree. 

Several years ago I stumbled onto the Yankee Candle “Mistletoe” scented oil. The only place I could find it was ebay, so I bought several with the electric plug in, and it was love at first scent:-) It really does smell like a fresh-cut Balsam, or Frasier Fir, and it makes the house smell wonderful. I think the reason most of the pine-scented candles smell so horrible is that they are missing the *sweet* element of the scent. These trees are sweet, and that makes the difference in how realistic the scent smells.

Yankee Candle does offer the Mistletoe scent in candles and wax melts, but no longer in the oil.

But not one to give up, I happened to be in Walmart looking at candles and found the BHG “Fresh Cut Frasier” and oh boy that was it. This smells *just* like a fresh cut Balsam or Frasier Fir. It’s sweet and the candles are just the right amount of scent so when you burn them, you can actually smell the scent, unlike most candles I try, that smell great in the store then like nothing when I get them home. 

I also love this in the wax melt version, and it makes the house smell so very good.

But that’s not all — BHG also offers this scent in a pretty decorated holder, and I think it was in the $5 range, seriously. 

Honestly, these scents are like my greatest Christmas finds ever because the scents take me right back to my childhood, and that’s exactly what I was looking for.

Y’all know this is not a sponsored post, but I wanted to share because this is too good to keep to myself:-) Definitely give either of these a try if you want the smell of a live tree in your home without the mess. The BHG candles are much, much less expensive than the Yankee Candle version, and in my opinion, just as good.