Have you heard of hygge, the Danish art of wintering? I came across the concept the other day and I am sold! It’s pronounced HUE/HOO-guh and it loosely translates to “coziness.” Candles, warm knit socks and soft blankets, enjoying porridge at home with close friends, cozying up to a good book while it’s storming outside… sounds lovely right? I think it’s an idea that’s pretty common in most of Scandinavia in general, because I remember my Finnish aunt lighting a crazy amount of candles around her home in the evening and curling up with a cup of herbal tea. (Side note: the adjective is hyggelig, and listening to a Dane pronounce it is delightful. This conversation was a lot of fun!)

Anyway. You’ve seen what our winters look like; we need some hygge in our lives! And I think we’re already somewhat on track: for example, we are hot chocolate-obsessed in our home. Andrew drinks it like coffee before heading out into the freezing cold to get to work. I like it too, but I’m more of a gourmet hot chocolate person — adding in flavor, creamer, whipped cream on top… (Starbucks’ caramel brûlée flavor is amazing!)

Adelina is hooked too: more than once a day she’ll come up to me and ask for “atchuk” (her word for hot chocolate ha), and I’ll mix her up some in her sippy. We did have to cut back on it though because she was asking for it four times a day there for a while… We’re all about warm, soft blankets too — there are about six of them in the living room at any given moment — and Sunday afternoon family naps.

Even the babies joined in!

Ha. Adelina is in a fun stage. But let’s be real… nobody actually got any sleep until we put Adelina down for her nap in her own room 😉

And then there are the winter meals: all the warm, hearty soups of course, and raclette is one of our favorites, although our raclette machine finally died after a good eight years of service so we’re on the lookout for a new one. I want to read this book next for more ideas on making it as hyggelig as possible, because winters are really long around here!

How do you winter? I love these decor ideas too, just search hygge on Pinterest…