Do You Need Another Pine Candle? The 2025 MFK Holiday Trio Might Seduce You Anyway

If your December altar is a lineup of candles rather than saints, the new Maison Francis Kurkdjian holiday trio is a tempting devotion. For 2025 the house brings back three scents that hit the holiday spectrum from forest to bakery to carnival: Mon beau Sapin, Pain d’épices, and Pomme d’amour. The set is 3 x 75 g and runs $105 at Saks. Not pocket change. Also not boring.

I’ve burned past seasons of Mon beau Sapin and it is not your usual balsam bomb. Think cool fir needles, polished wood, a little resin that reads chic instead of sticky. It smells like the crisp air that sneaks in when you crack a window at a party. If your tree is plastic, Sapin does the heavy lifting without shouting.

Pain d’épices is the gingerbread mood people think they want until it turns into a frosting headache. Kurkdjian’s style is typically airy, so expect spice lift rather than bakery fog. Clove and cinnamon sparkle, maybe a citrus rind wink, enough sweetness to feel festive but not like you moved into a patisserie. I like it in the kitchen late afternoon when the sun is low and you still have emails to ignore.

Then there is Pomme d’amour. The name points straight to caramel apple and that is exactly the seduction. Glossy sugar, warm caramel, tart red fruit. It is generous, yes, but it avoids the cheap-candle caramel that clings to your curtains. Light it for a movie night and suddenly your sofa is a fairground bench in good lighting.

Format check: 75 g is a votive-ish size. I treat trios like this as a weekend strategy rather than a season-long solution. Burn them in smaller rooms for best effect. Or be a little extra and layer. Sapin with Pain d’épices gives you forest kitchen vibes. Pomme d’amour next to Sapin turns into orchard-in-snow.

Is $105 justifiable? If you want a polished holiday set from a perfumer who understands restraint, yes. If you crave wall-of-scent impact, you may want their larger sizes instead. For me, Maison Francis Kurkdjian nailed the spectrum: pine for the tree, spice for the table, sugar for the heart. I will be hoarding Mon beau Sapin for January when the ornaments are gone and the room feels too quiet.