Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.

Today is Saturday, December 27, and we’ve had a lovely Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day! The kids were all home, even the two whose apartments are less than ten minutes away. We hosted our now annual Boxing Day Party and I think about 50 or more people came. It’s a casual open house buffet, and this year it was sort of a potluck, so I didn’t have to cook for that size crowd.

The Christmas Eve church service was beautiful, as always, with magnificent flowers and music. Santa, aka my lovely husband, had a few surprises up his sleeve. He gave me the expected Shalimar l’Essence, but also the exhibition book from the Cartier exhibit at the Victoria & Albert Museum which I saw in London this past spring. He also got various t-shirts for all of us, which were big hits. The kids really liked all their gifts from us, which is always so satisfying, and they did an excellent job choosing gifts for us. We feel very fortunate.

One funny thing: I couldn’t decide which of them should get which perfume from Seville, so I thought I’d wait until later in the day to bring them out and they could try them and choose for themselves. But after we’d opened all their gifts under the tree, they complimented me on NOT giving them perfume this year! So now I’ll keep the Seville perfumes for myself, lol.

I hope everyone who celebrates holidays at this time of year has enjoyed them immensely. Do you any any special plans for New Year’s Eve, fragrance-related or not?