#1,080 Orange & Clove.

When I was little, our house was on the annual Holiday Tour of Homes. We’d just finished building it and it was still brand new. I was only about 8 years old. I have this memory of mama and I sticking cloves in oranges and placing them on a 3-tiered stand the night before the tour of homes. I loved holding them and smelling them, being very careful not to break the cloves. It was the most intoxicating Christmasy smell. I’ve thought about it every Christmas since, and wondered why we never did it again.

A few days ago I found whole cloves on the spice aisle while looking for vanilla bean paste and snatched them up. Tonight the house was so quiet and warm. Ben was looking at Christmas presents for his parents, the fire was going and the Charlie Brown Christmas album was playing in the next room and I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do more than make the orange pomanders. Or whatever you want to call them.

So in case you’re interested, here’s how it works:

You buy a bag of navel oranges with thin peels. That’s the easiest. And you buy a little jar of whole cloves on the spice aisle.

Take a fork and deeply prick the orange in a straight line from top to bottom, then stick cloves in every other hole. Repeat making these lines on opposite sides of the orange, 3 times. Or really you can go nuts and make the holes wherever you please. It smells good just the same.

We couldn’t find the tiered stand she used so many years ago, but that’s okay. I think as long as they’re sitting out in a bowl they’ll be just as fragrant and lovely.

Also, I worked out the new layout for the Collection pages on the new Lucky Luxe website. I am jumping out of my skin excited to see it all finished!

I hope you’ll visit it when it’s ready!