What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. —Agnes M. Pahro
One of my favorite things during the holiday season is making stovetop Christmas potpourri.
There’s nothing like walking into your home and smelling like Christmas is staying for several weeks. It’s incredibly fast to make and leaves the whole house smelling like Santa and his elves came to visit and decided to stay.
There are hundreds of recipes out there, but today, I wanted to share a simple recipe that I’ve used for the last several years that you can recreate in your home. Try scenting your home this way in case burning candles isn’t an option for you. Feel free to share this post as I created a printable “recipe” below that you can pass along to your friends and family!

Christmas Memories: Holiday Stovetop Potpourri Recipe | SheSweatsDiamonds.com
A recipe for a home scent without needing to burn candles or using room sprays!
Ingredients
- 1 cup fresh cranberries
- 1 orange - sliced
- 1 apple - sliced
- 3-4 cinnamon sticks
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 tsp whole cloves
- 2 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
- Fresh rosemary sprigs
- Evergreen tree sprigs (optional)
- Water
Instructions
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Slice apple and orange.
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Fill your pot halfway or 3/4 of the way with water.
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Put all ingredients into the pot.
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Simmer on low (do NOT boil).
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Add water when needed.
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Can reheat up to three days.
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Enjoy the smell of Christmas!
Recipe Notes
If you want to get more creative, you can also use star anise, grapefruit slices, lemon slices or pomegranates.
Note: After the third use, I remove the cinnamon sticks (this is very important because you don’t want to clog your disposal/drain), dump the entire pot into the kitchen sink (a little bit at a time, of course), and turn on the garbage disposal while running some water. I do this to get rid of any extra kitchen odors and while making sure nothing is wasted.
If you’re a DIY’er like myself, here’s the same recipe, packaged as gifts that I made several years ago. Keep scrolling for quick instructions on how to make these potpourri gifts!
When I filled a treat bag, I wanted to make it visually appealing. I started with cinnamon powder at the bottom, then added cloves. From there, add rosemary/evergreen tree sprigs to the side, then fill with cranberries, and top with fruit. Twist and tie!
This gift was almost a fail because the bags with apples in them were very hard to tie. Learn from me. Pay attention to fruit sizes and pick smaller oranges and apples.
As you can see from the photo above, each person was gifted a set.
The left had evergreen tree sprigs with an apple and a recipe tag while the right had rosemary sprigs with an orange and a gift tag. I remember my boss asking if I bought these when I made them several years ago. Nope. Just some hustle and adding a creative twist from an idea I saw on Pinterest, ha!
During a busy time of the year, all I wanted for my colleagues to do was go home, slide up the fruit and toss everything into a pot of water and they were done!
In hindsight, I shouldn’t have made these with plastic treat bags. However, if I choose to do this again in the future, I’ll be using a more sustainable method like mason jars instead. The key to the mason jar packaging is to slice the fruit first then put everything inside to make sure it all fits. I’ll update this post with an image should I do it again later on down the road.
That’s it! I hope you enjoyed today’s post!
Let me know if you end up making this Christmas potpourri!
Enjoy and good luck with all your last minute Christmas shopping you have left to do!
The gift tags I used are from Clean and Scentsible. For the recipe tag, I made them myself.