How the holidays will impact your children forever – and it is more subliminal than you think
How the holidays will impact your children forever – and it is more subliminal than you think 
Photo credit: Ralf Weiser, Hameln Christmas market 2015
Christmas Eve service is only hours away and I am in a reminiscing mode. Especially the tree and also the dinner food smell make me think of the many Christmases of my childhood. Isn’t it bizarre how those smells can bring back such vivid memories? Now that we are grown up that is also the “smell imprint” we leave our children with for their lifetime.
The first intense memory of smell I recall came from a Christmas tree. On Christmas morning, my sister and I always found our living room door locked on Christmas Eve day. We children were not supposed to disturb Santa Claus. Not even mom was allowed in the living room. The fir tree scent still managed to escape the room through the gap underneath the door. What a wonderful fragrance! In Germany the tree was traditionally put up in the morning of Christmas Eve day. We could barely contain ourselves for church to be over in the evening. Presents were opened on Christmas Eve after having attended church and having had dinner. We rushed home to finally open the living room door looking for the presents Santa had left for us. While opening the door the warm and heavy Christmas tree scent enveloped us. Christmas was the only holiday in addition to Easter that was all about us children – the only other special day were our birthdays.
What are your most favorite Christmas scents? What were your most favorite moments you recall? Are those scents still around? Do you make a point of trying to reproduce the scents? How will your children remember the Christmases at your home?
I wish you a peaceful Merry Christmas holiday and that you may enjoy it making many memories lasting everyone a lifetime to come.
Ralf
