The Little Book of Hygge

Written by Miek Wiking, The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well technically isn’t a Christmas book, but the concept of hygge, (pronounced hue-guh) roughly means coziness in Danish, has a chapter on Christmas and tells us that Christmas is the epitome of hygge. The book consists of several short chapters that explain all the facets of hygge including candles, comfy clothes, hot drinks, baked goods, handmade crafts, and natural settings, essentially all things comforting.

The book is fun to read and the concept is easy to put into practice. As I write now, we’ve got the fire going in the fireplace, a couple candles, poinsettias and a tree (waiting to be decorated) in the corners.  Mulled wine rather than red wine would complete the hygge, but I’m American, not Danish so give me time.

It’s easy to see how Christmas promotes hygge, especially if your family adheres to the hygge principle of not discussing intense topics.

I first got the audio book, with the author reading it, which is great, but I wanted to get the recipes and spelling of the names of people mentioned like Poul Henningson, so I checked out the book from the library. I enthusiastically recommend both.