How Not to Achieve The Perfect Holiday Atmosphere

We got our tree today, put it up in the living room, and decorated it, but something is a little lacking. Mike and I both always look forward to the fabulous smell of a live tree at Christmastime (see, I'm not a complete Grinch). My mom is now allergic to evergreen, so they have to have a fake tree these days and it's never quite the same without that lovely, Christmasy, pine tree smell in the house. And then there's the fact that we have been micro-apartment dwellers for most of our married life and always out of town on Christmas and so have only recently begun to decorate for the holidays ourselves. For that reason, having a live tree in our very own living room is a bit of a novelty that we're growing to enjoy. Last year we got a Douglas fir, and although it was very sappy and kind of a mess, it smelled so incredibly perfect. This year we got a balsam, and it doesn't seem to smell as piney. Maybe it's just this particular tree itself, or maybe it's the species...

...OR maybe it's the fact that I burned the CRAP out of a pot roast today and our entire house absolutely reeks of charred meat and onion soup. I don't even know exactly how it happened. I checked it, it looked fine, next thing I know - beef jerky. Kind of hard to bask in the sweet evergreen smell of Christmas when your hair and sweater smell like meat. Pooh pooh to the Whos!