Hello Winter! If you’re anything like me, winter is NOT your favorite holiday and you’d prefer to bask in the warm rays of sunshine that summer offers up on the daily. In fact, my ideal scenario for the sequence of seasons would be two good, hard weeks of winter followed by a brief spring and an extra long summer (but, no one asked me how I’d prefer it so I’m stuck). Now, this is exactly what this post is about: I am admittedly living in the wishful state of waiting for the upcoming summer, or reminiscing on the past, not thoroughly enjoying the present (frigid, icy, gray days of never-ending winter).

 

I want to try something new this year to work on living presently and appreciating what wondrous things that winter has to offer: Hygge (pronounced hoo-guh). Now, if you aren’t familiar with this word or concept, it’s a Danish word, for which there is no direct English equivalent. It is said that a single definition of the word will vary from person to person. Generally, it involves factors including coziness, security, relaxation and familiarity. For me, this is also an avenue for me to embrace my Danish roots and celebrate some of the traditions of my ancestors. I want to emphasize that I am most certainly not an expert on all things hygge but thought it would be fun to explore this concept here on the blog, because I think that we all can use a tool to get us through the long, dark days of winter. At some point, the majority of us seem to agree that it seemingly lasts forever, I’m just saying. As I’ve been reading more about the concept of Hygge, I am realizing that my soul tends to gravitate towards hygge-like things when I don’t even realize it!

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I would love for you to, each day of the month of January, join me in doing something small to invite a sense of hygge into your life. Return here each day and click on the date on the calendar for your daily dose of hygge to embrace winter.