If you are searching for the best balsam fir candles for Christmas, you probably have one person on your list whose house smells like a fresh tree every December. You want to wrap up that smell and give it to her in a candle clean enough to burn beside the tree all season.
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Our pick is Sunday Reset in the 12 oz size. Before you buy, you should know that we do not pour a balsam fir candle, and none of our scents contain a fir note. Sunday Reset brings the cold, woody air of a room with a fresh tree in it. Cedar and eucalyptus sit over a warm base of clove and vanilla. Like every candle in our pure beeswax candle collection, it is poured by hand in New York City with wooden wicks that crackle softly as they burn.
What a balsam fir gift has to get right
A balsam fir tree smells sweet and resinous. The needles have a cool green edge, and the sap is sticky and warm. When someone says she wants her home to smell like a Christmas tree, she usually means the whole room. She wants cold air coming off the branches with something warm underneath.
A candle that catches both the cold edge and the warm wood reads as Christmas. A candle that pushes one sharp pine note tends to smell like floor cleaner. That is the most common complaint people have about holiday pine candles.
Why does a pine candle end up smelling like a cleaning product? Most of the answer comes down to what the scent is poured into.
The wax underneath sets the tone for the whole scent
Most holiday candles on store shelves are poured in paraffin. Paraffin starts as crude oil. Refineries heat the oil to pull off fuels like gasoline, and a waxy residue is left behind. That residue is bleached and sold to candle makers. So paraffin is petroleum waste. When it burns, it leaves black soot on the rim of the jar and on the wall above it.
If you have wondered whether that matters in a living room, the question is a fair one. Research has shown that burning paraffin releases compounds like benzene, toluene, and formaldehyde. This review of scented candles and indoor air quality looks at what candles add to the air in a home. It is worth thinking about when a candle will burn for weeks in the room where the family gathers.
Two more things often get added to holiday pine candles. The first is green dye. Heavy dye can build up in the wick and choke the flame, which is one reason dyed candles tunnel down the middle. MBur uses no chemical dye, so the wax keeps the natural color of beeswax.
The second is toxic fragrance. Phthalates are chemicals that some makers add to fragrance oils to make the scent last longer in the jar. We use only phthalate-free fragrance, so the scent comes from the oil itself.
Beeswax comes from the hive as a byproduct of honey. It has the highest melting point of any common candle wax, so it melts slower and burns longer. That is why our 12 oz size burns 80+ hours. A beeswax flame also gives off light close to natural sunlight, which looks warm and soft next to tree lights.
Once the wax question is settled, the only thing left to decide is which scent and which size fit the person you have in mind.
For the host whose tree goes up the day after Thanksgiving: Sunday Reset, 12 oz
Picture your sister's living room on Christmas Eve. The tree has been up for weeks, and the needles have started to drop onto the skirt. The house is full of coats on every chair, and someone is always at the door.
She needs a candle that can burn every evening through New Year's and still hold its own in a big, busy room. Our Sunday Reset beeswax candle is that candle. The notes are Peppermint, Clove, Cedar, Patchouli, Vanilla, Eucalyptus.
The first breath is cold. Peppermint and eucalyptus open up your nose the way the air does at a tree lot in December. Then clove and cedar warm the room, and vanilla sits low underneath. Cedar is the note in our line that comes closest to a fir tree. It smells like dry wood with a clean edge, and it blends right in with a real tree standing nearby.
Give her the 12 oz size ($65). It has two wooden wicks, so the melt pool reaches the edge of the jar faster, and the scent spreads through a large room sooner. It burns 80+ hours, which covers a nightly burn from early December through the holidays.
On Christmas morning, she lights it before anyone else is awake. By the time the kids come down the stairs, the cedar has already filled the room around the tree.
For the friend with a tabletop tree in a small apartment: Sunday Reset, 5 oz
Some people on your list have no room for a seven-foot tree. Think of the friend in a city studio with a two-foot rosemary tree on the windowsill and a radiator that clanks all night. She still wants her place to smell like the holidays when she walks in the door.
A small room fills fast, so one wick is plenty. The 5 oz Sunday Reset ($32) has one wooden wick and burns 40 hours. She can light it when she gets home from work and keep it going through dinner. The cold peppermint and cedar make the whole studio feel like it has a real tree in it.
Customers have used this exact scent as a gift for the people they love. One wrote:
"I bought this candle for a friend for mothers day"
Jessica H.
Another customer wrote about how long our smaller size lasts, which matters in a small apartment where a candle gets lit every night:
"Candle burned slowly and was exactly the amount of hours the company said it would burn. I was able to enjoy it for days even though it was the smaller size."
Portia Darby
For your studio friend, the 5 oz size fits the room. The scent reaches every corner without crowding a space she lives in at close range.
For the one who would rather be out in the woods: Touch Grass, 12 oz
She is the friend who drives two hours to a farm every December to cut down her own tree. She comes home with sap on her gloves and pine needles in the back seat. For her, Christmas smells like the forest floor more than the living room.
Our Touch Grass beeswax candle is built for her. The notes are Fig, Black currant, Galbanum, Coconut, Davana, Cedarwood, Amber, Orris, Tonka bean.
Galbanum is a resin that comes from a plant. It smells like bitter green sap and crushed stems, which is close to the smell on your hands after you carry a freshly cut tree to the car. Cedarwood and amber give it a warm, woody base. The fig keeps it green and soft so the sap never turns harsh.
Give her the 12 oz size ($65), with two wooden wicks and 80+ hours of burn time. She will light it most nights in the room where her tree stands, so the larger size fits the way she uses it.
On a snowy Saturday, her boots are drying by the door and the tree is still bare in its stand. She lights Touch Grass while she untangles the lights, and the room smells like the farm she just drove home from.
Matching the candle to the person on your list
Here is the whole guide on one screen, so you can match each person to a scent and a size.
| Who she is | Scent | Size | Wooden wicks | Burn time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The host with a big tree and a full house | Sunday Reset | 12 oz | Two | 80+ hours |
| The friend with a tabletop tree in a small apartment | Sunday Reset | 5 oz | One | 40 hours |
| The one who cuts her own tree every year | Touch Grass | 12 oz | Two | 80+ hours |
Every candle in the table is 100% beeswax with phthalate-free fragrance and no chemical dye. The only differences are the scent and the size, and both come down to the person and her room.
The questions you might still be weighing
"But she wants it to smell exactly like a fresh-cut tree."
Then choose by which side of the tree she loves. If she loves the cold air and clean wood of a living room with a tree in it, choose Sunday Reset. If she loves the sticky green sap and the walk through the farm, choose Touch Grass. For the fir itself, there is a simple trick in the presentation section below.
"But she already has a shelf full of holiday candles."
She will notice the difference the first evening. Beeswax burns slowly and leaves no black ring on the rim of the jar. A wooden wick crackles in a way a cotton wick never does. People who switch tend to stay, and one customer put it this way:
"They smell up a WHOLE room during the burn & even a while after blowing them out. I won't buy other candles anymore, they're just that good"
Paige
"But the candle will sit right next to the tree."
Keep it at least a foot away from the branches and from anything that can catch. A real tree dries out over the season, and dry needles burn fast. Set the candle on a table near the tree rather than under it, and blow it out whenever she leaves the room.
How to present it so it feels like Christmas before she lights it
Tie a sprig of real balsam fir to the ribbon. You can snip one from your own tree or ask for a trimming at any tree lot. The sprig gives her the true fir smell the moment she opens the box, and the candle carries the room scent for weeks after.
Tuck in a short card with first-burn instructions. On the first burn, she should let the wax melt all the way to the edge of the jar. Beeswax remembers its first melt pool, so a short first burn leaves a tunnel down the middle. After that, she should trim the wooden wick to about an eighth of an inch and keep each burn to about four hours.
Our candles arrive wrapped with care, and the wrapping is part of the gift. One customer wrote about it in her review:
"I love the package and how carefully everything was wrapped. Im saving the wrapping paper to utilize during the xmas holiday."
Jason H.
Finally, give it early in December instead of on Christmas morning. A holiday candle given on the 25th gets a week of use. Given on the 1st, it burns through the whole season while the tree is up.
Frequently asked questions
Does Sunday Reset actually smell like a Christmas tree?
It smells like the room a Christmas tree sits in, cold and woody with warmth underneath. There is no fir note in it. The cedar gives it the dry wood that sits beside a real tree, and the peppermint and eucalyptus bring the cold. Sunday Reset is our closest match to that feeling.
Will one candle last through the whole holiday season?
The 12 oz size burns 80+ hours, which covers a few hours every evening from early December to New Year's. Beeswax has the highest melting point of any common candle wax, so it burns slower than paraffin or soy. You can see both sizes in our beeswax candle collection.
Why do the wooden wicks crackle?
Wood has tiny pockets of air and moisture in its grain. As the flame reaches them, they pop softly, much like a log in a fireplace. In a room with a tree and the lights down low, that sound is a big part of why Touch Grass feels like a night at a cabin.
What if I do not know which scent she likes?
If you know her well, use the table above to match her to a scent. If you are not sure, an MBur Candle Co gift card lets her choose the scent and size for her own room.
The candle to give this Christmas
The best balsam fir candle gift brings home the cold air and warm wood of a room with a tree in it. It also burns clean enough to stay lit beside that tree all month. Beeswax, a wooden wick, and phthalate-free fragrance give you both.
For most people on your list, give Sunday Reset in the 12 oz size. It will make her home feel like Christmas every evening she lights it, from the first night the tree goes up. The cedar sits right beside a real tree, and two wooden wicks carry it across a full living room for 80+ hours. As one customer said about our candles, "This candle permeates every corner of the room."
Order this week so it arrives in time to give her in early December, while the season is still ahead of her.
Give Sunday Reset in the 12 oz size this Christmas, because it is the candle she will light every evening the tree is up.
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