This Christmas, give your meathead the gift of grease

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/11/2018 (2821 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I don’t want to sound overly creepy, but it’s starting to smell a lot like Christmas.

For the record, I am not referring here to the fragrance of fresh-cut pine, or the intoxicating aroma of gingerbread and nutmeg, or the smoky smell of a roaring fire, or the perfume of peppermint sticks or even the disappointing stench of an overdone Christmas turkey.

No, I am referring to the festive fragrance of a greasy plate of freshly cooked breakfast sausage.

I personally became aware of this overpowering holiday aroma the other day, when I stumbled upon breathless news reports about how the nice folks who make Jimmy Dean sausage are offering wrapping paper that smells like their product line.

Yes, just in time for the holidays, sausage-scented gift wrap! Is this a wonderful time to be alive, or what?

According to the stories I read online, Jimmy Dean is offering the sausage-scented wrapping paper as part of a holiday recipe gift exchange promotion.

“Our sausage-scented wrapping paper is here to turn your gifts into delicious ones, because nothing says the holidays like the smell of sizzling sausage! Make your holiday just a little bit brighter when you sniff its savoury scent and see visions of sausages dancing in your head,” the company chirps on its website.

From what I saw online, the wrapping paper comes in three designs: one with the Jimmy Dean logo atop Christmas trees, the second festooned in wrapped packages of ground sausage and the third with delicious sausage patties being fried up in a cast-iron skillet.

According to a promotional video on the site, the wrap really does smell like Jimmy Dean sausage, but it still “tastes like paper.”

Despite my reputation as an unapologetic carnivore and a champion of all things bacon, my initial reaction to hearing about the sausage-scented gift wrap was something along the lines of “Huh?”

Or as one Twitter user happily chirped: “Nothing screams baby Jesus’s birthday more than Jimmy Dean decorations and sausage-scented wrapping paper.”

After giving it a few seconds of careful consideration, however, I decided this would indeed be the perfect gift — at least for dog owners who feel their voracious pets do not currently produce enough drool when ripping up presents tucked under the Christmas tree.

Do not tell Santa I said this, but I am also mildly bemused at the thought of wrapping up presents for my son’s significant other — who has been vegetarian from birth and gags at the scent of freshly cooked bacon — in wrap that emits the unmistakable aroma of a meaty breakfast food.

I also wanted to write a fun, festive poem to poke fun at this aromatic novelty, but I couldn’t think of a word to rhyme with sausage, so I didn’t bother.

What you need to know — unless you are one of the dozens of readers currently writing me angry letters on your “I ♥ plants” stationery — is how to get your meathooks on some of this sausage-scented wrap.

From what I understand, you have to cook up a recipe featuring their sausage, take a picture, then submit it to jimmydeangiftexchange.com, where you can pick out a prize in the form of the smelly gift wrap, or a glass ornament shaped like a tube of sausage, or a handsome apron or some other branded item.

According to the website, one lucky sausage cook will receive a replica of the late country singer’s trademark diamond-studded, gold belt buckle, which, based on the photo, is roughly the size of Donald Trump’s head.

I suspect the sausage wrap is already sold out, but what you holiday consumers need to know is that this stinky novelty is just riding the wave of what appears to be the latest alarming marketing trend.

Seriously, it appears to be just the tip of a gigantic iceberg, which, when tipped over, would reveal millions of bizarre products that have been made to smell like meat.

For example, at this time last year, I wrote an entertaining and educational column about a product you are going to have a hard time believing is real (even though it is): namely, a bath bomb that leaves you, your bathtub and most likely your towels, smelling like fried chicken.

Seriously, the nice folks behind KFC Japan came up with Chicken Smelling Bath Powder, a fizzy bath bomb shaped like a finger-lickin’ chicken drumstick that you plop into your bath in a sincere and humanitarian effort to ensure you emerge from the tub emitting the unmistakable aroma of the colonel’s 11 secret herbs and spices.

It was only available in Japan, so, despite my legendary love of spending several hours each day immersed in a scalding bath, I was unable to get my hands on a sample.

It was the same story with yet another KFC promotional item designed to make users smell like the colonel’s signature bucket of greasy goodness — edible nail polish that, according to KFC, tasted just like fried chicken and came in two flavours (“Original Recipe” and “Hot & Spicy”).

“To use, consumers simply apply and dry like regular nail polish, and then lick — again and again and again,” is what KFC chirped in a statement at the time.

We are almost out of space, so I probably can’t tell you about how, in 2015, Burger King dished up another product I wish I could soak in — a cologne that allowed the wearer to smell exactly like the fast-food giant’s signature burger, the Whopper.

The “flame-grilled” fragrance was on sale for one day only — April 1 — and only in Japan.

For about 5,000 yen (around $56) customers received the bottled burger scent in a handsome black box, along with a fresh Whopper, so they could compare the two, um, fragrances.

The point I am making is that, yes, this sort of novelty item is phenomenally stupid, but if you happen to be a certain type of discerning consumer (yes, I am talking about guys like me), you will want to take advantage of this trend.

Not sure what to give the meathead on your Christmas list? How about anything wrapped in sausage paper? Trust me, it’s a no-brainer… because nothing else makes scents.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca