Hygge — A Personal Obsession

I am obsessed with the Danish concept of coziness. The Danish word HYGGE has no literal translation to English. I first read about the concept in the book A Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell in 2016. After reading about it, I knew I had experienced the feeling but had no word to capture the emotion. An advantage to reading is it gives you words and descriptions of things you don’t always know how to articulate.

This feeling of HYGGE was prevalent at holidays with my Oma’s [German grandmother] but also at my book club group which is full of some of the most interesting people I have ever met. They are professionals and progressive thinkers and readers and creators. I love them all!

Incorporating Hygge in my life as much as possible is a goal.

I often imagine a room full of books and a small group of people sitting around in overstuffed chairs with good snacks and coffee or wine having an intellectual conversation. I crave the conversations similar to my on-campus undergraduate work. I now experience comparable interactions from certain small groups of friends and my husband. In my visions, the lighting is low and there is a fire in a fireplace with candles lit all around the room. I almost wish I could make this a business — to make “a thing that doesn’t exist” but I am still working on the critical attributes of what that would actually…