I’m fascinated by the Danish concept of hygge, especially at this time of year. Hygge (pronounced, as near as I can tell, HYOO-gah) is a bit of a complex idea, but I like to think of it as being contented in a cozy atmosphere. Hygge is often connected with winter, a time when people want to be warm and at home, to nest. I could honestly look at cozy home hygge pictures all day–soft blankets, lighted candles, fireplaces, warm drinks, those thick socks I can never have enough of. (Go ahead–Google it! I’ll wait.)
I think another reason I like the idea of hygge is that it allows for a little bit of mess. I’ve always been a lot more attracted to a cozy, warm, welcoming home than to a home that looks like you shouldn’t sit on the sofas, no matter how clean and organized it is. (I’m sure those of you who have seen my home are not shocked to read this confession.)
Creating a cozy home also just doesn’t seem that hard, at least on the surface. Who can’t get some throw blankets and pillows and light a scented candle? But of course, these images are pointing at something much deeper–at our need for a place of safety, refuge, and renewal.
When I talked about hygge recently with my church MOPS group, we discussed the feelings and images evoked by our own childhood homes and what we would like our children to remember about our homes. For many moms, the way our children remember our homes feels like part of our legacy, and it should, considering the amount of time most of us spend trying to make our homes clean, organized, pretty, welcoming, etc. Warm, soft, cozy–these are all words I hope my children will think about when they think of our home.
I also noticed every single person in my group described her childhood home as being “safe.” That is a hygge idea too–home as a safe place or refuge where we can regain energy and courage. And that too is what I want most to offer my children–a place that is safe, a respite from the outside world when it all gets too much, a place where they can unabashedly be themselves. I think this is why the concept of warm and cozy appeals to us so much, even if we don’t live in a snowy part of the world. It makes us feel safe and cared for.
Hygge is also tied to the biblical idea of hospitality, something I am deeply interested in. Biblical hospitality can be summed up as welcoming and caring for guests, particularly strangers. God programmed all of us with a deep need for safety and peace, and I believe part of God’s purpose for our lives is to help provide safety and peace for others. Hospitality is more about these ideas of welcoming and caring for than it is about the appearance of our home or the taste of our food. Yes, appearance and taste ARE part of creating a welcoming place where people feel cared for and happy. It feels good to be in a beautiful space eating delicious food, but no matter how lovely your home and how chef-quality your food, none of that matters if you are not welcoming and warm. Personally, I’d rather eat Chef Boyardee from a can with my friends than the finest food among people who are disdainful toward me or my family, no matter the setting.
Life with God is about so much more than how we look or how our homes look; it’s about how we are inside.
As I told my MOPS moms, if our homes are loving, if WE are loving, reflecting as best we can the remarkable and astounding love God our Father has for us, I believe that’s what our children will remember most, NOT whether we burned the garlic bread (every.single.time) or had dusty bookshelves. (Not that those things bear any relevance to my house . . . obviously.)
In addition to simply doing our everyday Christian work of seeking to be more like Jesus, how can we intentionally make our homes places of contentment and safety?
One way is to set up guardrails around technology to let our children (and ourselves!) have a measure of freedom from the outside world. These can be small steps like we try to do in our house: no phones at the dinner table, charging your phones at night in a central location rather than bedrooms. The focus in our homes should be on each other rather than our screens. All the warm blankets, candles and roaring fireplaces in the world won’t help if my family is all staring at their individual devices.
Marie Tourell Soderberg takes this idea one step further in Hygge: The Danish Art of Happiness when she writes, “When you decorate your home, make room for charging stations–not only for your phone or computer, but for yourself and your family.” She suggests corners for these people charging stations, since corners also give us a feeling of being safe. Is this not brilliant? We are so obsessed with keeping our devices charged. What if we gave as much thought to keeping ourselves and our families charged? When I read her words, I knew immediately where my own family’s charging station was–the large, squashy sofa in the front room that is big enough for all five of us, is topped with blankets and probably too many pillows and, most important, is where our miniature dachshund likes to hang out, perched on the top by the front window so she can monitor our comings and goings. Every single person in my house plops there at least once a day to relax, pet the dog, and occasionally receive a therapeutic licking.
Sometimes, all five (six, including the dog) of us recharge there at once. And those moments represent another important way of creating the kind of home I want to have: focusing on shared time together. Eating dinner as a family, finding a movie that everyone wants to watch, playing games together. I know families whose favorite pastime is baking together, and others who love to hike, surf, bike, or wakeboard together. (According to my hygge books, outdoor time together when the weather permits is also very hygge.) Whatever your family’s thing, I encourage you to be deliberate about making time for it or making actual space for it in your house if appropriate.
I wish you and your family many happy hygge moments of enjoying and recharging together.
Let me know: have you heard of hygge? If so, what do you think of it? And what is your family’s charging station? (Does it involve a dog?)
Em Cummins
Your post on hygge reminded me of Edgar A. Guest, the British-born American poet whose poems appeared daily in the Detroit Free Press for decades in the last mid-century. My mother loved his work, and especially one called “Home,” which reflects many of the ideas in your post. I’m pasting the link in case you’d like to read it.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44313/home-56d2235c059bf