Hygge (pronounced Hoogah) is hard to describe, but chances are you are already living it in some form or another -- especially during this wet and rainy winter.
Hygge is the Danish word for cozy. Examples include, cuddling with your partner or your pet, vintage textiles, wearing comfy PJs around the house, even when it's not bedtime, (but please do us all a favor and not when going to grocery store), pendant lights, circular tables, old shoes, and drying your laundry outside. Say what? Don't worry, Dean will explain it all on Sunday's show.
One of our favorite definitions of Hygge comes from best-selling author Helen Russell, a woman who moved from the U.K. to Denmark, and who wrote The Year of Living Danishly. She describes it as “complete absence of anything annoying or emotionally overwhelming,” with “a focus on togetherness and prioritizing the people in your life.”
Helen Russell will join Dean this Sunday, February 19 at 10:20 - 10:45a
The New Yorker describes it this way:
"Winter is the most hygge time of year. It is candles, nubby woolens, shearling slippers, woven textiles, pastries, blond wood, sheepskin rugs, lattes with milk-foam hearts, and a warm fireplace. Hygge can be used as a noun, adjective, verb, or compound noun, like hyggebukser, otherwise known as that shlubby pair of pants you would never wear in public but secretly treasure. Hygge can be found in a bakery and in the dry heat of a sauna in winter, surrounded by your naked neighbors. It’s wholesome and nourishing, like porridge; Danish doctors recommend “tea and hygge” as a cure for the common cold. It’s possible to hygge alone, wrapped in a flannel blanket with a cup of tea, but the true expression of hygge is joining with loved ones in a relaxed and intimate atmosphere. In “The Little Book of Hygge,” the best-selling of the current crop of books, Meik Wiking, the C.E.O. of a Copenhagen think tank called the Happiness Research Institute, shares a story about a Christmas Day spent with friends in a woodsy cabin. After a hike in the snow, the friends sat around the fireplace wearing sweaters and woolen socks, listening to the crackle of the fire, and enjoying mulled wine. One of his friends asked, “Could this be any more hygge?” Everyone nodded when one woman replied, “Yes, if a storm were raging outside.”
So this Sunday grab your partner, a blanket, pour yourselves a warm beverage and light a candle (or spark up your fireplace) and gather around the radio at 10a. You'll soon discover why Hygge is trending for 2017.
The Hygge Manifesto:
1. Atmosphere - Turn down the lights
2. Presence - Be here now. Turn off the phones.
3. Pleasure - Coffee, chocolates, cookies, cakes. Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie.
4. Equality - We over Me. Share the tasks and the air time.
5. Gratitude - Take it in. This might be as good as it gets.
6. Harmony - It's not a competition. We already like you. There's no need to brag.
7. Comfort - Get comfy. Take a break. It's all about relaxation.
8. Truce - No drama. Let's discuss politics another day.
9. Togetherness - Build relationships and narratives. "Do you remember the time when we ..."
10. Shelter - This is your tribe. This is a place of peace and security.
-Dean Sharp