During a time when so much of American culture is busy downplaying tradition, more families are embracing it, and they’re using their olfactory senses to take decorating to the next level.

According to retail data, these consumers are not just decorating sooner. They’re also breaking out those scented candles quicker.
Home goods analysts report a jump in premium candle sales starting as early as October, with many Americans saying holiday fragrances are now essential to creating a warm, welcoming home.

“As temperatures fall, the demand for candles surges, often peaking around the holidays… candles offer an affordable way to modify a home’s atmosphere,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of retail for market research firm GlobalData.

It turns out when people want to strengthen family traditions and build lasting memories, they’re focusing on one of the most important memory-making details: scent.

While most shoppers are cramming into the aisles of Bath & Body Works or getting headaches sniffing endless scent combinations at Target, the savviest conservatives have their feet kicked up at home as they shop online for superior candles. The Candle Club is a circle of family and friends where tradition, timeless values, and truth burn bright.

They also make the perfect gifts for all the Daily Wire fans in your life. With specialty collaborations made for each podcast host, plus seasonal candles for all occasions, these amazing smelling candles take the guesswork out of finding the perfect gift for your like-minded friends and family.

Seasonal favorites like the new Michael Knowles Christmas Trio, Deck the Halls, Frosted Forest, and other holiday scents are flying off the shelves as families look for cost-effective ways to make their homes festive without going overboard on overpriced décor. People are figuring out that another strand of garland is nice, but a scented candle is the ultimate way to achieve holiday warmth that lasts all season.

If you want your home to feel festive, start with the scent.

Browse high-quality, small batch gifts today at TheCandleClub.com.

The Candle Club shares common ownership with The Daily Wire. 

WASHINGTON — The State Department is ordering posts to refuse visas to Afghan nationals using Afghan passports in the wake of a brutal attack on two National Guardsmen in Washington, D.C., guidance reviewed by The Daily Wire shows.

Effective immediately, according to the Friday guidance, all diplomatic and consular officers are “instructed to refuse under 221(g), or any other applicable ineligibility of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), all otherwise eligible Afghan nationals using an Afghan passport to apply for a nonimmigrant (NIV) or immigrant (IV) visa.”

That action includes any applications for Special Immigrant Visas (including Afghan SIVs, SQ, SW, SI, SE, SS, according to the State Department) and SB-1 visas for residents returning to the U.S.

It is intended to “ensure that such applications have undergone necessary security vetting and to validate screening protocols ensuring the applicant’s identity and eligibility for a visa under U.S. law,” the State Department memo said. “Additional guidance will follow SEPTEL on updated enhanced vetting or screening measures that may be required for this purpose.” 

If they have already print-authorized nonimmigrant or immigrant cases for Afghan nationals who are applying with Afghan passports, but those visas have not yet been printed, they are instructed to refuse the cases and not print the visa. And in cases where the visas were already printed but not handed back, they must “spoil the foil, open the case in the system, and refuse the case.”

Police keep a presence following the shooting of two U.S. National Guard members near the White House in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Nov. 26, 2025. (Photo by Hu Yousong/Xinhua via Getty Images)

The guidance doesn’t apply to dual nationals who are applying with a passport of a different, non-Afghan nationality, the State Department said. More guidance on enhanced vetting or screening will follow for processing the non-immigrant and immigrant visa applicants who are applying with Afghan passports.

The move comes after President Donald Trump promised to halt migration from third world countries, writing in a late night Thanksgiving post: “I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country.”

The president’s move followed the shocking attack on National Guardsmen the day before Thanksgiving. An Afghan man killed a National Guardswoman and wounded another National Guardsman, both of whom had been deployed from West Virginia to Washington, D.C. to protect the nation’s capital. Twenty-year-old Sarah Beckstrom died from the attack on Friday, her family said. Twenty-four-year-old Andrew Wolfe is still in critical condition.

Both Beckstrom and Wolfe “were sworn in less than 24 hours before they were shot on the street in Washington,” United States Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro said in a Thursday morning press conference.

“They were uniformed members of the West Virginia National Guard, and they were in DC to keep DC safe pursuant to President Trump’s executive order to make DC safe and beautiful,” Pirro shared. “They answered the call, they took the charge, they volunteered, they put their lives on the line for people they don’t even know, and that unfortunately is becoming a reality more and more for the members of law enforcement.”

The gunman accused of shooting the two young guardsmen is 29-year-old Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, The Daily Wire previously reported, who was let into the country during President Joe Biden’s administration in 2021, as part of the former president’s “Operation Allies Welcome,” the Afghan refugee program in the wake of Biden’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal.

Trump, in his late-night Thanksgiving post, argued that the “refugee burden is the leading cause of social dysfunction in America.”

“As an example, hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota,” the president said. “Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for ‘prey’ as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone.”

He continued: “The seriously retarded Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both, while the worst ‘Congressman/woman’ in our Country, Ilhan Omar, always wrapped in her swaddling hijab, and who probably came into the U.S.A. illegally in that you are not allowed to marry your brother, does nothing but hatefully complain about our Country, its Constitution, and how ‘badly’ she is treated, when her place of origin is a decadent, backward, and crime ridden nation, which is essentially not even a country for lack of Government, Military, Police, schools, etc…”

“Even as we have progressed technologically, Immigration Policy has eroded those gains and living conditions for many,” Trump said.

The president promised to pause migration from third-world countries, and to end all federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens and to “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.”

“These goals will be pursued with the aim of achieving a major reduction in illegal and disruptive populations, including those admitted through an unauthorized and illegal Autopen approval process,” Trump said. “Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation. Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — You won’t be here for long!”