Writer, editor and speaker Cheryl Russell is a Laguna Woods Village resident. Contact her at Cheryl@starheart.com.
What scent sums up the holiday season for you? Is it the aroma of your favorite foods? A certain plant? Or something symbolic of the celebration? A number of behavioral studies have demonstrated that smells trigger more vivid emotional memories and are better at inducing that feeling of “being brought back in time” than images. That seems to be true, since people tend to mention memories of some kind when they talk about their favorite holiday foods. The three major holidays celebrated in December are Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanzaa. They all have specific intentions and many related scents and aromas that connect to memories of celebrated traditions. Christmas commemorates the birth of Jesus with the fragrance of frankincense, pine, wood burning in the fireplace and, in colder climates, the “fresh smell” of snow.
