Christmas Morning

You can smell it before you open your eyes. Cloves and cinnamon and something baking — gingerbread, obviously — and for a second you're not sure what year it is, and it doesn't matter.

The Gingerbread Man is steeping on the counter. Black tea, ginger, cinnamon, cloves — it tastes like December distilled into a cup. The Vienna Eggnog is for whoever wants something richer, creamier, the tea equivalent of wearing pajamas until noon. Sleigh Ride is the wild card — fruity and spiced, cinnamon and hibiscus, the one the kids will steal when nobody's looking.

The kitchen is doing the real work. Cloves, ground, pressed into the ham. Whole Nutmeg grated over the eggnog — the real eggnog, the one with the eggs. Indonesian Korintje Cinnamon in the French toast batter, in the mulled cider, in the oatmeal if anyone's pretending to eat healthy before the chaos starts.

Cinnamon Sticks in everything that simmers. The cider. The potpourri pot on the stove. The hot chocolate. They don't dissolve — they just sit there, doing their job, making the whole house smell like the memory you're currently building.

Eight products. One morning. The kind you spend the other 364 days trying to get back to.