By now you may have guessed that I lived in what would be called a family commune that was handed down through generations. My granddaddy had owned a couple thousand acres of land at the turn of the century. He kept the land so that his large family of sons and daughters might build houses on the land and have farms or gardens of their own.
So, I lived on a lot of land with wooded areas with a lot of family.
One uncle had gone on to own a grove of fruit in Florida. So, at Christmastime, he would have trucks bring fruit to the families who remained while he shuffled back and forth from the family community in northern Georgia to Winter Haven, Florida. There would be an abundance of citrus fruit and the smell of citrus fruit and my uncle's bounty to be shared by the family members was one sweet memory and good smell and it was only enhanced by the making of ambrosia.
Another was that we had a fishing lake on our land and a vast amount of trees. We cut our own Christmas trees but near the fishing lake area there were magnolia trees growing. We would get magnolia branches to decorate with while cutting our Christmas trees.
My grandpop usually cut one tree for our house and one for their house as my Dad work abroad so my mother, being busy with the restaurant and the nursery business, could not spare the time. Therefore, he, my grandmother, one of my siblings and some of the farmhands and I would go to the woods and gather trees and put them on an old wagon while Grandmamma insisted on his cutting a few branches from magnolia trees so she could decorate with them. So, just the smell of the woods and all that grew there, my granddaddy clearing the path with a machette while cutting sassafras and sage bush for brooms and the smell of that.
Another fond memory is the smell of cutting timber (we grew pine trees for sale to papermills) with chainsaws for sale. We sold timber about that time of year so I recall the people with the chainsaws coming in and the smell was of monoterpine bleeding from the tree trunks.
However, the smell that began around Christmas and lingered throughout the winter season was firewood starter/fat kindling. It had a strong but not overpowering odor of the trees that were being cut, but more mellow and cured, and I loved that smell which began in the big gathering room at Grandmamma's house where the piano was located. All my siblings, our cousins would be there singing while our mothers played the piano, and having fun during the holiday season when everyone was out of school and even the college kids were home for the holidays. The college kids had grown kind of grumpy so we were happy to have them out to the movie theater (and God knows where else) at night while the smaller ones of us sat there enjoying one another with the smell of the fire, our fun and frolic.
Once they were all gone, the memories and the fat kindling lingered until Grandmamma and Granddaddy were no more. Never a Christmas comes but I don't think of them and even my oldest son recalls that house, the smells and he said it was like smelling Claire Burke Applejack and Bath & Body Works Fireside oil.
My other 3 children did not have that golden opportunity to know that house, that smell and those wonderful homemade cakes, candy and pies at "Grandmamma's house." But for those of us who did, I think my oldest son described it well: the smell of Claire Burke Applejack and Bath & Bodyworks Fireside.
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