Pomander Balls - natural air fresheners you can make with your children this holiday season!

Jumpstart your own holiday feelings, and imprint your children and grandchildren with a wonderful and visceral holiday memory they will treasure forever. Pomander balls is not the latest pandemic disease, no, a pomander ball is a gentle fragrant holiday craft to share with small children and a skill you can pass down for generations.

INGREDIENTS
You need one perfect, unblemished piece of fruit - I've only used oranges.

In fact, except for the ribbon, I had everything on hand already. I've read that it can be done with lemons and limes too. Apples seem like they might get mushy too fast, but they sure would be quick to make, and yummy to smell. My mind is racing now - how about some of the exotic fruits I've read about on DavesGarden but have never tasted - would it work with them too? Kumquats? Pomegranates? Persimmons? You name it, give it a try... The cloves have a natural preserving effect.

If you choose to roll your finished pomander in spices (or shake it together with spices in a plastic bag, or spoon spices over it), you can use literally any spices or even tea you have around. I used ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, the scraps of cloves that had

crumbled off during the poking-in process, and some loose tea that my step-daughter thoughtfully brought me from London a few years ago. You could also use allspice, pumpkin pie spice (which is really just a combination of some of the aforementioned spices), or let your mind get creative! How about rose hips? Lemon balm? Bergamot? What have you harvested?

INSTRUCTIONS
Using a fork, ice pick, tooth pick or other sharp object (just be careful for the safety of your little ones), pierce holes through the skin of the orange. (Just substitute the name of the fruit you're using for 'orange', OK?) This hole-piercing step can prevent a lot of frustration for little kids and even, I hope, eliminate the sore thumb that so many of us remember from our childhood pomander ball experiences! When you pierce the holes ahead of time, you can make designs, or not, as you wish.

Then carefully slide a whole clove deeply into each hole. (When I say "ahead of time" I don't mean hours or days, just what you can finish in a few minutes or half an hour.)

Some people feel it is essential to keep the 'rosette' of the clove intact - I find no matter how careful I am, when I push the clove in, often the top part of the clove falls apart. On the other hand, I guess I'm not that fussy about the appearance of the final product. And while the cloves are disintegrating, you're getting a wonderful aroma. However, this is the part that some children find painful, pushing in the clove with their little thumbs. Try letting them cover their thumbs with a thimble. If they find that too tricky, even a rubber glove works to protect the thumb from the sharp, prickly clove!

BE SURE TO.....

To me, pomander balls are about the smell of the room while you're making them, the smell of wherever you hang them, the cool way they fossilize... They are part of winter the way the smell of wood smoke is part of winter, or the way your favorite Christmas carol is part of Christmas. Smell, taste and sound are such primitive senses! Although elaborate careers can be built on classical music, gourmet cooking and fancy wine or French perfumes, to me, it all starts with 'twinkle, twinkle, little star,' ginger cookies and lemonade, and the smell of a pretty flower. Making a pomander ball for yourself or with a child may help rekindle the sense of a time when the best gifts were homemade and the nicest garden was your family's.

Pomander Balls - natural air fresheners you can make with your children this holiday season!

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