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Christmas Potpourri in a Jar is like bottling up the scent of the holidays. With fresh cranberries, oranges, cinnamon, cloves, allspice and nutmeg, these DIY Christmas gifts is a simple stovetop potpourri that everyone will love.
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Looking for unique and beautiful DIY Christmas gifts? Grab the free printable below and get all the details to make a few of these Christmas Potpourri in a Jar Homemade Christmas gifts for family, friends, neighbors and teachers!
I’m really excited about this Christmas Potpourri, because it’s a great non-food gift that I can give to my kids’ teachers (I mean, they get tons of candy and cookies already!) and I LOVE how the free printable tag turned out!
I love to fill my home with amazing scents during the holidays, and there’s no better combination than citrus and cranberry mixed with cinnamon and spices. This is a simple recipe that you can simmer on your stovetop or in a crockpot to help fill your home with these delicious scents of the holidays. All of these ingredients are combined in a small pot on the stove and simmered for hours.
This Christmas Potpourri in a Jar comes with a free printable and is crazy easy to put together. It looks stunning, and it’s not just another food gift.
Potpourri Ingredients
These are the ingredients you’ll wrap up for your gifts. You can also just simply drop all of this in a pot of water and simmer it for yourself!
- ½ cup fresh cranberries – make sure they are really fresh. You’ll start seeing these in the produce department around early November, maybe even late October.
- 1 small orange – The size you purchase will determine what type of vessel you can use to assemble the gifts. Larger oranges won’t fit through the mouth of the jar, and you don’t want to slice the oranges. Clementines are great for smaller jars.
- 4 cinnamon sticks – These seem to come in varying lengths, but are usually about 3-inches long. You can always find a large bottle of these at Costco.
- Whole cloves or allspice (or both) – I’ve used both with fantastic results. But you can choose to use just one of whichever is your preference.
- Ground nutmeg
How to Make These DIY Christmas Gifts
For the assembly, you’ll also need:
- Wide-Mouth, Quart Jars or cellophane gift bags – The jars are obviously more expensive, but they do have the biggest impact. As you can see in the images, I fit a small navel orange inside.
- Kraft paper or wrapping paper – Kraft paper is stronger, wrapper paper tends to rip, so choose wisely.
- Ribbon or twine – I like the rustic look of twine, but use whatever you have on hand.
- Scissors
- a Printer – if you don’t have a home printer, you can have these printed at your local office supply store for a few dollars.
- Paper/Cardstock – I tend to prefer cardstock because it holds up better. But it’s your call.
Bag Instructions: Place the ingredients inside the jar or cellophane bag and tie a ribbon around the top, attaching the tag with the ribbon.
Jar instructions: Top the lid of the jar with brown kraft paper, wrapping paper or any other paper you like, secure with the jar lid band, then tie on the free printable gift tag with a ribbon or twine. The gift tag doubles as the instructions!
A Few Things to Note
- You want to make sure that the vessel you choose is large enough for the oranges. If you plan to use small navel oranges, or maybe fresh oranges from your backyard tree, I suggest using cellophane gift bags that would be able to accommodate the larger pieces of fruit. There’s nothing worse than having to jam that orange through the mouth of a jar and the recipient not being able to get it out!
- If you opt for mason jars, be sure to use the wide mouth mason jars ones, for the same reason as above.
- You’ll note that on the recipe card it says “cloves” but in the image I used allspice. While these two spices do have different scents, they each blend nicely and one can be swapped out for the other based on what you have available. Or you can use both.
- For the spices, it’s easiest if you place them in a small bag so they don’t just fall to the bottom. I simply cut the corner of a ziploc bag, poured the spices into that corner piece, then tied it with a small piece of twine. (See the video for the visual). You could also just pour them into the bottom of jar if you like.
- I recommend printing on cardstock for the best results.
- Be sure to make one of these cute Christmas gifts for yourself – trust me, these smell amazing and you’ll be glad you did. This recipe works beautifully in the slow cooker, too!
Make Ahead Instructions
You can make these jar gifts about a week in advance.
Assembled jars should be refrigerated and gifted within a week to maintain freshness of ingredients.
Please note – all printables on this site are free for personal use only. They are protected by copyright and not to be sold, altered or redistributed in any way. Thank you for keeping the items we share free for all!
Download
More DIY Christmas Gifts and FREE Gift Tags
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Christmas Potpourri
Equipment
- Quart Size Ball Jars
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup fresh cranberries
- 1 small orange clementines work great
- 4 cinnamon sticks
- 1 tablespoon whole cloves or allspice
- 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Instructions
- Slice the orange Into thick slices or quarters. Place all of the Ingredients In a 3-quart (or larger) pot on the stove. Pour in enough water to cover the Ingredients by at least an inch.
- Simmer on low heat, uncovered, checking periodically and adding more water If needed.
- Slow Cooker: Add Ingredients to the pot and cover with water. Set to low and leave uncovered.
I have used this in the past and saved it to print and give to our neighbors for the holiday’s = However, I cannot seem to locate the printable … can someone help with that?
Hi Shannon, I updated the link so it stands out a little better. Look for the black button at the end of the post that says “Click to download.”
I am looking to make this for Christmas this year for a bunch of people. Do you actually prepare before gifting it or do you put all the ingredients in the jar for them to make themselves?
Put all the ingredients in a jar and gift the jar with the printable note.
I found your christmas potpourri and would love to make it with my granddaughter as gifts this year. I wanted to know if you have a way to print the tag you show? I went on your site but could not find any instructions. Might you be able to help.
Thanks
Hi Beverly, I highly recommend to print on cardstock. You can use your home printer or have them printed at an office supply store (it’s pretty inexpensive).
Love this idea. I’m having trouble finding fresh cranberries. Would dried cranberries work?
Unfortunately no, dried cranberries won’t work the same.
I am so excited to make these this christmas! I have a question..is the allspice you use ground in place of the whole cloves? and if so do you still recommend 1 tablespoon? I do not have cloves but I have ground allspice and wanted to try that instead!
Yes you can use whole allspice or whole cloves. You could put ground allspice a small bag so it doesn’t get lost.
I can’t find fresh cranberries this time of the year. Would another fruit work, such as cherries? Any other suggestions?
Other fruits aren’t as stable as cranberries and won’t last as long. The orange and cinnamon would still be a great scent.
I love this idea – I did something similar last year but will be using yours this year to gift friends. This would also be great to gift at Thanksgiving – would love a Thanksgiving tag if you are able to include one. Thanks!
Kristin, I went to a Christmas party 2 years ago where we assembled these for ourselves. I enjoyed it so much that I did it last year for neighborhood gifts. Thank you for making the tags available to us to print out. I am going to do it again this year for some new neighbors!
Nice! Thank you so much for stopping by Marilee.
cannot find the download for the christmas potpourri
Scroll down towards the bottom of the post and look for the “download graphic.”
There is a yellow letters box that says print free printable here. Click and that and your good to go
Is there a way to make the tags a little smaller so has to get more than four to a page?
You could make your printer’s settings, but I can’t change the printable, sorry.
Thanks for this great idea! I was gifted it and look forward to giving it to others. Do you have a photo of the gift with cellophane packaging all put together? I struggle with presentation 🙂 Thanks again!
No, but it’s super simple – meant to be rustic, so you can’t get it wrong!
I received this as a gift and made it today. Now I am looking to do this next year for others and I am trying to figure out how to order the recipe cards. Christmas Potporri.
Hi Marcia, no need to order – it’s a free printable that you can get by clicking the DOWNLOAD link towards the end of the post. Glad you liked it!
Can I slice up the oranges before putting in the jar? Or should I leave whole? I’m gifting the next day after making them.
I would leave them whole. They will spoil much quick if cut up.
I have scrolled up and down this several times and cannot find a yellow graphic saying DOWNLOAD,
Hi Julia, The download graphic is near the end of the post, right above the recipe. It says “click here to download” in a big yellow graphic.
Thank you for sharing this great recipe. I come back to it every year. I’ve given this as gifts to teachers, neighbors, and people at church the past few years, and it is something people look forward to now. It fills homes with great fragrance without adding anything to the hips =) Thank you!
You are so welcome Melody,Thanks for stopping by.
Do these need to be refrigerated
That would be best if you aren’t planning to gift them right away.
I don’t see Download anywhere
Towards the bottom of the post there is a large yellow graphic that says “Click here to download.”
do you have a printable for the cute tag?
Yes just scroll down to where it says “Download.”
Would mandarin oranges work with this?
Definitely!
Good Evening,
Can you please tell me when you make this how long do you leave it sit. Do you leave all of this in the pot
and reheat again the next day. How long does it last?
If you’re going to want to reheat the next day, I recommend storing in the refrigerator. If you do that as soon as the liquid cools to room temperature, it should last a few days.
What kind of cellophane bags do you use for the spices inside the jars?
They make very small bags like for marshmallow pops. Or what I did was just stuff the spices into the corners of a sandwich bag and snip it op and tie it.