As an avid reader of this website, you already know that we have a candle business. What you may NOT know is that we sell about 80% of our candles between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I make them all by hand. And this means that by mid-December, my body is experiencing an accelerating cascade of physical breakdowns, much like the spacecraft in Apollo 13.
Fortunately, the solution to this problem is pretty obvious. (And no, it is not to hire someone.) It is to start making candles that people will buy at other times of the year. Like birthdays, baby showers, housewarmings, and the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.
Birthday Candle
How do you pick out a birthday present for someone without revealing that you have no idea what they like or what their interests are? Introducing the Birthday Candle! It’s the perfect gift for everyone, because everyone has a birthday.
What does it smell like?
It smells exactly like a freshly baked birthday cake. It is really a dead-on scent. We’re proud of this one.
Coincidentally, it also smells exactly like our Marie Antoinette candle. You see, we buy fragrance oils in bulk, so that we can pass the savings on to you, the fragrance oil end-user. This means that if a particular candle doesn’t sell well, we try making other candles with the same oil. We bought 10 pounds of cake fragrance oil, so we’ve got a ways to go. If the Birthday-Scented Candle doesn’t sell, then next up will be “Haunted Bakery,” or “Cake, the band,” or “Prison Break.” (We would hide a tiny metal file inside that last one, and market it to people in prison.)
Who should I buy it for?
Obviously, you should buy it for someone who is having a birthday. But it also makes a great gift for someone who is not celebrating a birthday, but who is a jerk and so you want to stick it to them.
-“Hi. I got this for your birthday! Happy Birthday!”
-“But it isn’t my birthday.”
-“Oh? That’s weird. Because you really look like you’ve aged. In fact, I assumed I’d missed a few of your birthdays, which is why I got you such a decadent gift.”
Can you end a sentence in a preposition, as in “Who should I buy it for?”
YES. Whenever some pedant claims you can’t end a sentence with a preposition, have them come talk to me, and I’ll explain English grammar to them. With my fists.
OK, but shouldn’t it also be “whom” instead of “who,” since it takes the accusative case and…
POW!
Housewarming Candle
Moving is the absolute worst. Lots of things make it horrible, but one of them is the experience of arriving at your new home and being enveloped by someone else’s scent like a musty old quilt.
The best way to solve this is to mark a new home with your own scent. And the most hygenic way to mark a new home with your own scent is to light a scented candle.
That’s why this is the perfect housewarming gift. When a close friend says, “Hey, are you free Saturday? I could really use some help moving,” you can reply, “Sorry, I can’t help you this Saturday, because I prefer not to. But here is a candle!”
Who should I buy it for?
Someone who is moving, and who can be trusted not to burn down their new house because they left a lit candle unattended.
What does it smell like?
When we moved into our house, the housewarming gift we received from our next-door neighbor was an alarming story about why our yard had a privacy fence.
But in an imaginary, idealized version of America, people give each other delicious baked goods as housewarming gifts, as if to say, “Now that you’ve got a nice big house with wide doorways, there’s no need to watch your figure.” So, that’s what it smells like. Delicious, baked goods. Kind of cinnamony, but not cloying.
Baby-Scented Candle
Did you know that it’s traditional to give someone a gift when they have a baby? No? Well, that explains why so many of your friends harbor secret grudges against you.
Who should I buy it for?
This is an important question, because a lot of people wrongly assume this is a candle that you buy for a baby. This is a bad idea, because why would a baby want a baby-scented candle? I mean, would Batman want a Batman-Scented Candle? Probably not. (Unless he was using it as a decoy.) No, this is a present for the parent of a baby. And chances are, you know someone who is pregnant right now. Maybe it’s you!
What does it smell like?
We think it smells exactly like baby powder. A friend of ours suggested that it smells like a newborn’s scalp. But we can’t confirm that. We avoided all physical contact with our children for the first six months of their lives, because we were grossed out by how slimy they looked on day one.
Hamilton-Scented Candle
You may remember Alexander Hamilton as the founding father who experienced a huge wave of popularity about a year ago. We didn’t want to capitalize on that wave, because we don’t want to make too much money. That’s why we didn’t launch a Hamilton candle until now.
What does it smell like?
Evoking the scents of young Hamilton’s ocean voyage to America, it combines the wooden planks of a tall-masted sailing ship, casks of Caribbean rum, and an ocean breeze.
Who should I buy it for?
Buy it for people who hated the musical Hamilton.
Titanic-Scented Candle
If this candle sells well, we’re going to do a whole series of candles based on heartbreaking disasters that involved catastrophic loss of life. Hindenburg! Krakatoa! Black Plague! Boy, we are just going to print money with these. Would you like to invest in our candle company?
Who should I buy it for?
Here is who you probably should not buy it for: survivors of the Titanic.
What does it smell like?
We think it smells like water. But that means it does not have a very strong scent, because water doesn’t have much of a smell. If you don’t believe me, go sniff a glass of water right now. See, it doesn’t smell like vodka. You only associate the smell of vodka with water because you always drink vodka in the shower.
What happens to the wax Titanic and the wax iceberg when you light the candle?
You’re just going to have to buy one to find out!