If you are looking for a sandalwood cedar candle to give this Christmas, and you want one she will light every night instead of saving it for a special occasion, give her Wine Down in the 12 oz size. It is the only candle in our line with both cedar and sandalwood in its notes. The two woods sit under soft herbs that make a dark December evening feel slower and warmer.
What customers say on Google
View on Google
The size matters as much as the scent. The 12 oz jar has two wooden wicks and burns 80+ hours, so a candle opened in early December can carry her past New Year's if she lights it most evenings. That slow burn comes from the wax, which is why every candle in MBur's hand-poured beeswax candle collection is made from 100% beeswax with phthalate-free fragrance, poured in New York City.
Why sandalwood and cedar make the coziest Christmas pairing
Sandalwood and cedar are often sold as one scent, but they smell quite different. Sandalwood is creamy and soft, a little sweet, the kind of warmth you notice more when you leave the room and come back. Cedar is dry and sharp, closer to fresh-cut wood or a pencil you just sharpened.
On their own, each has a gap. Cedar alone can read thin and a bit cold. Sandalwood alone can feel heavy in a small room. Put them together and the cedar gives the scent its edge while the sandalwood fills in underneath, so the room smells like a warm wood fire with nothing actually burning except the candle.
This matters for a gift because of timing. A pine or balsam candle smells like Christmas morning and nothing else, so by January it starts to feel out of place. A sandalwood and cedar base sits closer to fireside warmth. She can keep lighting it through the cold weeks after the tree comes down, which means your gift stays on her table longer.
The wood notes only work if the candle burns slowly enough to release them evenly. That is where the pick, and the size, come in.
The top pick: Wine Down, for the friend who needs her evenings back
Picture your sister in the second week of December. She gets home at 6:40, the house is cold, and the gifts she meant to wrap last weekend are still in shopping bags on the dining chairs. She has maybe an hour before she has to think about tomorrow.
That hour is what our Wine Down beeswax candle is for. Its notes are Lavender, Chamomile, Sage, Rosemary, Camphor, Cedar, Sandalwood. The herbs reach you first, green and clean. As the melt pool spreads, the cedar and sandalwood settle into the room and stay there after she blows it out.
Wine Down is built for the end of the day. It suits the person who runs a bath after the kids are down, or who sits on the couch with a cup of tea and no screen for twenty minutes. For a Christmas gift, it tells her you noticed how hard she has been going this month.
Why the 12 oz size is the right one for this gift
Choose the 12 oz Wine Down ($65) if she will light it most nights or keep it in the living room. It has two wooden wicks and burns 80+ hours. Here is why the second wick matters: one flame in a wide jar melts a narrow circle in the center, so the wax tunnels down and the scent stays close to the jar. Two flames melt the surface edge to edge, and a full melt pool is what pushes fragrance across a room.
Eighty hours also fits the season. If she lights it for two hours each evening from early December, she is still burning it well into the new year. The gift keeps showing up in her routine long after the wrapping paper is gone.
A mini scenario: Christmas Eve, after everyone leaves
The last guest pulls out of the driveway around eleven. The dishes can wait. She lights Wine Down on the coffee table, the wooden wicks start their soft crackle, and the room smells like sandalwood and cedar for the first quiet hour she has had all week. That is the moment you are giving her.
Customers who buy Wine Down tend to describe how far the scent carries, which is the main thing a gift candle has to get right.
"Absolutely obsessed with M Bur Candle Co my roommate and I own 6/8 of the scents! 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, on Wine Down
That lasting scent after the flame is out comes from the beeswax itself, which is worth understanding before you choose between the two picks.
The second pick: Sunday Reset, for the friend who works from a small room
Now picture a different person on your list. Your coworker set up her desk in the corner of a spare bedroom. The radiator ticks, the window looks out on a gray parking lot, and her first call starts at nine.
For her, the better fit is our Sunday Reset beeswax candle. Its notes are Peppermint, Clove, Cedar, Patchouli, Vanilla, Eucalyptus. The first breath is cold and minty, like stepping outside on a winter morning. Then the room warms up as clove and cedar come forward, with vanilla softening the base.
Sunday Reset is the more Christmas-forward of the two. Clove and vanilla are the smells of holiday baking, and cedar keeps it grounded so it never turns sugary. It suits mornings and fresh starts, the person who cleans the whole apartment on Saturday and wants it to smell finished.
Why the 5 oz size fits this room
Choose the 5 oz Sunday Reset ($32) for a small room or for someone who lights a candle a few times a week. It has one wooden wick and burns 40 hours. In a home office or a small bedroom, one wick gives a full melt pool in the narrower jar, and the scent fills the space without crowding it.
Sunday Reset is also a candle people buy for others. One customer wrote it plainly: "I bought this candle for a friend for mothers day." The same reasoning works for Christmas. It is a scent most people like on first breath, which makes it a safe choice for a coworker or a friend whose taste you know less well.
A mini scenario: the Monday after the holiday party
She drags herself to the desk at 8:50, coffee in hand. She lights Sunday Reset, the peppermint wakes the room up, and by the time her first call ends the clove and cedar have warmed the space. The week feels a little more manageable, and she thinks of you.
Why beeswax carries a wood scent better than other waxes
Both picks share the same wax, and that is the reason they burn the way they do. Beeswax has the highest melting point of any candle wax. A harder wax melts more slowly under the flame, so the same jar burns longer, and the fragrance releases at a steady pace instead of all at once in the first few hours.
Compare that with paraffin, the most common candle wax. Crude oil is refined into gasoline and other fuels. What is left at the end of that process is a waxy residue, which is then bleached and sold as paraffin. Paraffin is petroleum waste, and when it burns it leaves black soot on the rim of the jar and on the wall behind it.
Beeswax starts somewhere very different. Bees make it inside the hive, and beekeepers collect it as a byproduct of honey. It is the oldest candle material people have used, going back to about 5,000 BCE. MBur uses it as the only wax in the jar, with no blend.
The two details she will notice first
The first is the sound. Wooden wicks crackle softly as they burn, close to the sound of a small fire in a grate. For a gift built around cozy wood notes, that crackle finishes the effect in a way a cotton wick cannot.
The second is the light. A beeswax flame has a light spectrum closest to natural sunlight. In December, when it is dark by 4:30, that warm glow on the table changes how the room feels at the end of the day.
Those details make the gift feel considered. The next question is usually which of the two picks fits the person you have in mind.
The questions that come up right before you check out
"She already has a shelf full of candles."
Most people with a candle shelf have jars they bought for the label and never finished. What she likely does not have is a 100% beeswax candle with wooden wicks and a sandalwood cedar base that works well past the holidays. Give her the 12 oz Wine Down. The crackle and the 80+ hour burn will set it apart from everything else on that shelf the first night she lights it.
"Her living room is big and open."
Large rooms need a wide melt pool to carry scent, and that comes from two flames. Go with the 12 oz size, since its two wooden wicks melt the surface edge to edge. Wine Down is the scent for an open living room where she unwinds, and the cedar and sandalwood base keeps the room smelling warm even after the flame is out.
"She is sensitive to strong scents."
This is where Wine Down earns its place again. Its herbal top notes are soft, and the woods underneath are gentle rather than loud. One customer who described herself this way put it in her own words:
"It made my space feel cozy and refreshed at the same time. I'll definitely be purchasing it again. Highly recommend if you're sensitive to strong scents but still want something that smells amazing!"
Nicole D., on Wine Down
If the person you are buying for has a medical condition that affects how she reacts to scent, she should follow her doctor's guidance about burning any candle.
"She lives in a studio apartment."
Choose the 5 oz size. One wooden wick is the right fit for a small space. Pick Wine Down if her evenings are what need the help, or Sunday Reset if she works from home and wants the room to feel fresh each morning.
How to present it so the gift feels like hers
A candle is easy to wrap and easy to make personal. Tie a small sprig of fresh rosemary or a twig of cedar into the ribbon. Rosemary is one of Wine Down's notes and cedar runs through both picks, so she gets a hint of the scent before she opens the box.
Add a handwritten card with one line of instruction: "Let the first burn go until the wax melts all the way to the edge." That first burn sets the pattern for every burn after it. A full first melt pool keeps the candle from tunneling and gives her the full 80 hours or 40 hours you paid attention to when you chose the size.
If you can, give it early. A candle handed over on December 1 gets the whole month of cold evenings, and she gets to enjoy it before the holiday rush instead of after. If you are sending it to someone who travels for Christmas, a candle delivered before she leaves gives her something to come home to.
One placement tip to share with her: keep a lit candle well away from the tree, garland, and wrapping paper. The New York State Department of Health guidance on fragrances and fire safety is a useful reminder during a season when the house is full of things that catch quickly. A tray on the coffee table or a clear spot on the kitchen counter works well.
Sandalwood cedar Christmas candle questions, answered
Which MBur candle has both sandalwood and cedar?
Wine Down is the one. Its notes are Lavender, Chamomile, Sage, Rosemary, Camphor, Cedar, Sandalwood, with the two woods forming the base under the herbs. If you want both woods in one jar, the Wine Down beeswax candle is the gift to buy.
Will a beeswax candle smell strong enough to fill her living room?
Yes, as long as the melt pool reaches the edge. The 12 oz size has two wooden wicks for exactly this reason, so the whole surface melts and pushes scent across the room. For a large living room, the 12 oz Wine Down is the right choice.
I want sandalwood without the herbs. What should I get?
Look at our Do Not Disturb beeswax candle. Sandalwood sits in its base under a softer, fruit and floral opening, and it is the scent customers pick for the bedroom. It makes a good Christmas gift for someone whose wind-down happens right before sleep.
How do I keep a new candle from tunneling?
Let the first burn run until the wax is liquid all the way to the edge of the jar, usually a few hours. After that, the candle follows the same line each time. If she wants a clove and cedar scent for a smaller room, the one-wick 5 oz Sunday Reset reaches a full melt pool easily.
Which one feels more like Christmas?
Sunday Reset leans more festive, with clove and vanilla over cedar. Wine Down leans cozier and quieter, with sandalwood and cedar under soft herbs, and it carries well past December. For a gift she will burn all winter, choose Wine Down.
The one to wrap this week
The best sandalwood cedar candle for Christmas is the one that matches her room and the way she spends her evenings. For most people on your list, that is Wine Down, the only MBur candle with both woods, in the 12 oz size with two wooden wicks. For a small room or a home office, Sunday Reset in the 5 oz size brings cedar and clove in a jar sized for the space.
Give Wine Down in the 12 oz size. It is the candle she will reach for at the end of every long December day, and that is how she will remember who gave it to her. The two wooden wicks and 80+ hour burn mean the sandalwood and cedar fill her living room night after night, well into January. As Paige put it, "I won't buy other candles anymore, they're just that good."
Order this week so it arrives with time to wrap before the holiday rush.
Related reading
