What is Hygge?
Hello! Happy Saturday 🙂 Grace here.
I hope you’re all coping with the week alright. It’s flown by over here!
I started re-reading a book that Dave gifted me a few years ago, and it’s so uplifting! It’s called ‘The Book of Hygge’ (pronounced hue-gah). The Danish Art of Living Well.
It’s only as I get older that I really start to appreciate the little things, the things in life that bring us comfort… now more than ever! Whether that’s curling up in front of a fire with a blanket (not right now!!) or having a cup of tea in the garden or riding bikes around an island with good friends… everyone has their own ‘Hygge’ (hue-gah).
Please allow me to share this opening of the book with you…
Note From The Author
‘Hygge is a feeling that most of us know but can’t quite define. To give a name to an experience is to pay attention to it. Hygge can describe feelings that are already familiar to you. It is there in the rhythm of your daily life, in your habits, routines and rituals.
You don’t need Danish recipes or the secrets of a Scandinavian lifestyle to learn how to hygge. It can be found in asking yourself where you feel most at home, what are the activities and customs that anchor you, who makes you feel at ease, what is it that contributes most to your sense of wellbeing, what do you do to unwind, what do you reach for to create comfort?
For me, hygge exists in moments of contentments, particularly at the beginning and end of the day. We hygger first thing in the morning when we light a candle at our breakfast table, make coffee, pancakes and packed lunches and when we return home to each other to share a cup of tea or a glass of wine, to sit around the kitchen table together and enjoy our evening meal.
I invite hygge by lighting fires almost every day, inside or out, by spending time with the people I love and enjoying time alone. Hygge is held in the ritual of the bedtime stories that I have read for the past twenty-three years, in birthday celebrations and the enchantment of Christmas Eve. I hygger when I make risotto, make love, make tea or read in bed. I find it at the heart of the dance floor, when I walk through our local town, camp at small festivals or meet a friend for coffee. It lives in my father’s study, in my mother’s garden, around the table in my aunts’ quiet apartment in Arhus, on the veranda under a wide African sky with my husbands family.
Hygge arrives when all four children come home and we sit by a fire under the oak trees in the garden, play cards, beachcomber, dance in the kitchen or curl up under blankets to watch a film together.
I hope that I can translate hygge from a very Danish word to the universal language that it is and that, in reading this book, you will discover the hygge that already exists in your life and become attuned to its presence.
– Louisa Thomsen Brits
Just food for thought… I’m sure you’re already thinking of how you hygge! I’m going to assume crafting is hygge for many of you. But what kind? And what else?
One of my most obvious hygge’s is washing my hair in the shower whilst listening to Harry Potter on audible. It just really is CONTENTMENT for me. I reach for it at the end of a long day because the feeling of comfort is necessary, no matter how many times I’ve heard it.
Mark even says ‘Are you going to Hygge now?’ which translates to ‘are you going to listen to Harry Potter in the shower now?’ hahaha!
I would predict that my Mum would say hers includes audiobooks too… and tea, lots of tea. And sitting in the garden. You hear her say that a lot… there’s a reason for it.
I’m going to try to list a few more things for myself over the weekend and would love for you to join me. Perhaps you’ll even be inspired to buy the brilliant book! But what comes to mind for you? I’d love to hear what brings you hygge (remember… it’s pronounced hue-gah!)
Definition:
Hygge is a quality of presence and an experience of belonging and togetherness.
It is a feeling of being warm, safe, comforted and sheltered.
Hygge is an experience of selfhood and communion with people and places that anchors and affirms us, gives us courage and consolation.
To hygge is to invite intimacy and connection. It’s a feeling of engagement and relatedness, of belonging to the moment and to each other.
Hygge is a sense of abundance and contentment. Hygge is about being, not having.
Here are my favorite cards of the week! Just because they’re GLORIOUS.
Some gorgeous creations this week! (as always). I’m sure they impress you as much as they impressed me! Just wow!
Let me know what your hyyge is – and I’ll put them all into a hat and buy the book for the winner! A gift from me to you 🙂 Dave passed it on to me, now I can pass it on to someone else…
Enjoy your weekend!
Lotsa love, Grace xo
Clarity – The Home of Art, Craft and Well-being.
Hello Grace, What beautiful cards you have chosen. So much talent out there.
My Hyyge is family time. When I have my hubby, children and their partners and my adorable grandchildren around me. What could bring more contentment than family 🙂
Stay safe, happy and creative x
Hi Grace, what a lovely word – never heard of it before. My Hyyge is sittting in the garden or conservatory reading or x stitching and listening to audio book, with the obligatory cup of tea ! It also includes crafting as you said, and knowing hubby is up the other end of the house with his own Hygge which I’d say was his crosswords and tv, and both of us knowing our cats are curled up with us. Have a lovely weekend. X
My hygge is spending time walking on the beach with my husband, soul mate and buddy of 51 years
Hello Grace, beautiful artwork you’ve picked again.
My hyyge is a cup of tea, a good book to read and my two cats curled up beside me on the sofa.
Enjoy the weekend, x
Hi,
Hyyge for me would be time with family, time to craft, time to walk outdoors (countryside, beach or park)
Grace, you, your Mom, and the rest of the Clarity family are my hygge… a feeling multiplied infinitely this morning with the arrival of the Harbor and Deep as the Ocean plates I didn’t even realize until then that I’d won! Thank you, thank you, thank you for the gorgeous early birthday gift!
Hugs xoxo
Hi Grace
Sorry I just seen this just now. My Hygge is being with my family and friends, snuggling with my cats, GROOVI, stitching and my garden. I don’t know what I would have done at the start of lockdown if Hilda hadn’t introduced me to Clarity. It’s honestly like a whole new big family and I’m very grateful to every single person especially all your wonderful team.
All the cards you have chosen are so beautiful and thank you so much for picking mine I would be absolutely lost without Groovi. Lots of love…Diane xx
Listening to your mum while I’m knitting. I can get to doing what she says later, once I’m calm!
Hello Grace
My Hygge is crafting (of course – only Claritystamp products, lol), spending time with family and friends.
Love
Roz.xxx
My Hygge is stamping (especially with my Clarity stamps), its also crocheting while watching a movie in our lounge with hubby, I also Hygge deeply when reading I totally bliss out yet my biggest Hygge is getting together with my family, all of us around the dining table after a good meal which hubby has cooked, lol, and we’re all talking or quiet and just enjoying that moment ❤ of togetherness.
Thank you for reminding me of those moments Grace, they calm and centre me well and truly.
Don’t forget your mum’s love of pottery and jigsaws as I’m sure they produce that feeling too. Have a Hygge weekend xx
Thanks Grace, for sharing what looks to be an interesting book. I think I’d describe Hygge as utter contentment, and for me that is cuddling my dog while reading a good book on my Kindle -preferably with chocolate to hand for me and a few treats for Jenty Whippet!! I do get jogged sometimes, if I get too engrossed in my book and forget to stroke His Furship!! This scenario mostly happens in bed at night, before we settle to sleep.
Lovely cards you have chosen. Hygge is a warm fuzzy feeling when the family are around. I read this book a while ago, and went out and bought two more rugs for cuddling up in (it wasn’t summer!) and more candles. It is a lovely to achieve contentment, even when life is trying.
Thank you for sharing this Grace.. A gentle walk in the Woods, keeps me grounded, especially if I get out through the different seasons.The beauty and the power of trees , of nature itself, reminding me, and ‘right sizing’ me. Hygge, is that feeling..that tells me that …’this is about as good as it gets’ . Hope that you are having a great weekend x
Hyyge for me means family, when we can all get together and share our news. But when I can’t see my girls, Hyyge is in my craft room.
Hi Grace
What a beautiful selection of cards you have picked and shared with us all. Thank you xxx
WOW what an unusual book Dave gifted to you. Isn’t it funny how we pick things up from years past, revisit them and how their meaning becomes so much more real.
I don’t know what my Hygge is. I may treat myself to a copy of the book to try and absorb and understand it more.
Hope you’ve been having a lovely weekend.
Love & Hugs
XxxxxxxxX
My hygge is doing my parchment craft and listening to the wonderful voice of Alfie Boe – his voice soothes my soul! Look out for him singing as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables – marvellous!!!!
Actually, to be quite honest, he could sing my shopping list and I would be more than happy!