ON: Hygge

Have a cozy fall!

Song of the Week - “Coffee,” by Sylvan Esso - “Wild winters, warm coffee”

At the end of 2016 - a year just as tumultuous and stressful as 2024, if not more - the Collins English Dictionary announced their top ten words of the year. The winner, “Brexit,” spoke to the prominence of political division and xenophobia in the news that year, both in the UK and around the globe.

The runner-up, however, communicated a cultural craving for comfort: the Danish word “hygge.” Hygge (pronunced HOOH-gha) is roughly translated as coziness, intimacy, and togetherness. It’s the sensation you get when you’re gathered around the Christmas tree with family, or when you’re snuggling under a blanket watching Gilmore Girls for the tenth time, or when you were a kid and you came in from sledding on a snow day and drank a big mug of hot chocolate.

Of course, in this age of social media and consumption, hygge soon became an advertising term; several books quickly appeared to teach people how to embrace hygge properly, and articles directed consumers towards just the right slippers, candles, and artisan hot cocoa mixes to buy to be as hygge as impossible.

Though hygge, as a fad, was replaced by #selfcare and #cottagecore and a host of similar social media phenomena, the idea behind it is one worth remembering. Despite the fact that they have some of the coldest and darkest winters in the world, Danish people are consistently ranked the second happiest in the world (after fellow their fellow Scandinavians in Finland).

The major cause for that happiness, of course, are systemic: Danes enjoy a robust social safety net including generous unemployment, universal health care, and more than a year of paid parental leave. Socks and cinnamon buns are no substitute for living in a society that takes care of its citizens.

But - as the nights lengthen and the temperature drops and the fight for a more equitable society still stretches out in front of us - a little hygge can’t hurt.

Fall is my favorite season, and October is my favorite month, and normally I would be excited to spend this whole month celebrating with you. Next week, however, I am leaving for an epic bucket list trip to New Zealand (!!!) with my best friend Jillian, and will be taking the month off from Syllabus while I explore Hobbiton, climb mountains, and experience an October spring in the Southern Hemisphere. 

And so, while I’m gone, I’ll leave you with ten suggestions to make your life more hygge, that I hope you’ll find comforting in October and all through the cold, dark days until spring returns.

1) Learn to knit (or crochet, or sew, or embroider, or macrame, or…)

I learned how to knit when I was twelve or thirteen. My first project was a scarf for my cousin Kristii, knit from terrible novelty eyelash yarn. It was glittery, essentially made from plastic, and somehow doubled in width from beginning to end.

My mom taught me how to do a basic knit stitch, but I learned everything else from YouTube, in the months and years that followed, and you can too. All it takes is a pair of needles, and a ball of yarn, and a little bit of patience, and then you’re off to the races.

Over the years since that first clumsy scarf I’ve knit sweaters for babies and adults; developed my skills in cabling, lace-making, and colorwork; and accidentally knit my father a single sock with a foot almost as long as my arm Whether I’m whipping up a hat for a toddler or carefully following a complicated four-color chart, I find knitting immensely soothing: I take my nervous energy and attention and care and I turn them into something tangible. As this 2018 Tumblr post puts it:

The thing about knitting is it’s much harder to fear the existential futility of all your actions while you’re doing it.

Like ok, sure, sometimes it’s hard to believe you’ve made any positive impact on the world. But it’s pretty easy to believe you’ve made a sock. Look at it. There it is. Put it on, now your foot’s warm.

Checkmate, nihilism.

2) Listen to a classic story from childhood on audiobook

My parents both read aloud to me from birth, and they didn’t stop completely until I left home for boarding school at 15 (for a while I switched to reading to my dad during our morning drive to school). Some of my favorite memories from when I was little are of impatiently waiting for my dad to get home, and hollering “Daddy can you read to me?” from bed before he had even taken his shoes off.

Unsurprisingly, I love audiobooks as an adult, and use them to listen to all kinds of memoirs and thrillers and fantasy novels while I’m commuting and cooking. Some of my favorites, however, have been classics I loved as a kid: Anne of Green Gables, read by Rachel McAdams. The Hobbit, read by Andy Serkis. The Magician’s Nephew, read by Kenneth Brannagh. Right now, I’m listening to Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. You can get tons of audiobooks for free, digitally or on CD, from your local library - and you can listen while you knit!

3) Send someone a handwritten note

When I was a kid, my mom started making hand-stamped greeting cards, and I wanted nothing to do with them. I didn’t see the point in most cards, and I thought the cheerful cards, with their embossed flowers and quaint sayings, were terribly uncool.

Life being what it is, of course, today I love homemade cards, stationery, and any and all handwritten notes. There is something belligerently impractical - and thus, hopelessly romantic - about giving someone a tangible, handwritten letter in the era of text messages and TikTok. I love the ritual of it - picking out nice paper and a good pen or scribbling my thoughts on looseleaf; double-checking the address and sealing the envelope; painstakingly placing the stamp on the corner like a grown-up sticker book and dropping it in the mail slot. It’s an act of faith, and its own form of time travel - a method of communication that used to be so essential it inspired its own genre (the epistolary novel, or novel of letters).

Of course, there are all kinds of reasons you can send mail this fall - sending out family Christmas cards or wedding invitations or sympathy cards - but I’d encourage you to send a letter to someone you haven’t spoken to in a while, just because. They might just write back, providing you with a treat even better than sending snail mail: receiving it.

4) Bake something new

Baking is a year round activity in my house, but turning on the oven becomes less of a sacrifice when it’s getting chilly outside. This year Taylor bought me a Bundt cake pan as one of my birthday presents, and so last weekend I baked my first ever Bundt cake: this pumpkin Bundt cake from the always-reliable Sally’s Baking Addiction, with nutmeg-spiced cream cheese icing.¹

It helps that every fall I am also inspired by a new season of The Great British Bake Off, possibly the sweetest reality competition show ever made. If you have somehow not encountered the show, the premise is simple: amateur bakers from across Great Britain gather weekly in a large tent to bake cakes, breads, pies, and other treats inspired by their families and friends. Every week one baker is eliminated and one is named Star Baker, and at the end, the winner of the entire competition receives no money, only an engraved crystal cake plate.

As Linda Holmes explains in her beautiful essay about why the show is so beloved, The Great British Bake Off suffuses its baking competition with an ethic of gentleness and optimism that I hope you bring to your own baking:

Don't laugh, but this is life, in a way, as we all hope for it to be. You screw up, but not entirely. You see your hoped-for result dashed on the counter in a pile of goop, but someone says, "I see what you put into this; I see what you intended." Someone you trust who is better than you are at whatever you're trying to do says, "We both see what you did wrong; I can help you identify what you did right." You still might lose. You still might go home crying with disappointment. But someone will have said, "Next time, take it out of the oven five minutes sooner and you'll really have something." It's a show of such ... hope.  Hoping everybody else is going to be willing to try the imperfect layers of your particular not-quite-put-together cake is often the only way to get through the day, after all.

5) Eat by candlelight

On our honeymoon, while staying in the fairytale town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany, Taylor and I ate dinner at a restaurant that lit each table with a single stub of candle in a pewter candle holder.

Ever since, I’ve become obsessed with thrifting an antique candle holder like it. I still haven’t had any luck, but I did find two heavily tarnished brass candlesticks at a flea market, which I brought home and cleaned up. Then, of course, I needed candles, and today I have amassed a collection of simple white tapers from Target, as well as beautiful blue and green beeswax candles bought from local Ontario beekeepers. 

The scented candle market, of course, is vast and profitable, and I love a fall-scented candle as much as the next girl (more on that in a moment). But there is something to be said for the simplicity and elegance of a tall, thin taper candle, throwing its wavery light across a room and making ordinary faces seem mysterious and beautiful once again. Pull your grandmother’s candlesticks out of storage or thrift some for a couple of dollars, strike a match with a hiss, and celebrate, as T. S. Eliot describes it, “Light -  the visible reminder of Invisible Light.”

6) Do some out-of-the-ordinary people watching.

New Zealand is seventeen hours ahead of where I live right now, ensuring that when I return I will inevitably be severely jet-lagged, and end up keeping very odd hours for a couple of days. While jet lag can be a killer, I kind of enjoy its novelty when it leads to me temporarily getting up earlier than usual. In the days right after we returned from our honeymoon, I was up at 5 or 6 am, and used the extra time to read, do yoga, and go for early morning walks. I am not a morning person, so it was exciting for me to see the joggers and dog walkers that I would normally miss, and hear the mourning doves cooing their gentle songs in the soft early light.

It’s easy to fall into routine and sleepwalk through our days, especially when the weather is harsh and our energy is low. Research has shown, however, that novelty boosts memory and dopamine production. Consider intentionally breaking your routine and going to a familiar place at an unfamiliar time, then looking around you to see how things have changed. Get up earlier than usual and spend some time at your favorite coffee shop right when it opens. Go for a drive right before bed and count the lights in windows. Visit your local library at golden hour and watch the dust-filled light slanting through the stacks. Pay attention.

7) Host a comfort food potluck

Thanksgiving, both Canadian and American, has become a controversial holiday recently, with people rightly critiquing the ways that the holiday glorifies settler colonialism and erases the mistreatment and attempted genocide of Indigenous people. Though some people still cling defiantly to the pilgrims-and-patriotism side of the holiday, however, I would hazard a guess that most people love Thanksgiving because of its focus on rich, carb-heavy food and spending time with loved ones.

Over the last few years, we’ve also seen the official rise of “Friendsgiving,” a gathering of friends celebrated either instead of or in addition to traditional family Thanksgiving. The sitcom Friends, though it predates the term, exemplifies the tradition: the six friends find community and comfort in each other, not their families, and gather to watch the Macy’s parade, play a little casual football, and eat a feast lovingly prepared by a harried Monica.

The appeal of Friendsgiving, of course, is one that can be applied to any gathering throughout the colder months. If you don’t want to make turkey, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce, consider hosting a potluck where everyone brings their favorite regional comfort food, like Minnesota hot dish or Cajun red beans and rice. Hold a chili-cook off, like my work did this February.² Organize a soup tasting, and compare recipes for minestrone or chicken noodle or tomato soup. Give your body a big warm hug from the inside out.

8) Take a hot drink walk

During the pandemic, like so many others, I took a lot of walks - usually in the same tight loops around my neighborhood. By October of 2020, I was getting stir-crazy, and so one bright and chilly afternoon Taylor suggested we mix things up a little. We picked up pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks, drove to a large park filled with colorful trees, and took a long meandering walk where we sipped our drinks and daydreamed about the features of our dream house.

There are plenty of people out there who see exercise as a motivator in and of itself, but I am most motivated by a little treat. Once I figured out that my favorite local coffee chain, Cafe Pyrus, had an outpost location on a walking path twenty minutes from my apartment here in Kitchener, I was doomed. Most Fridays this summer, I ended my work week by walking to Pyrus for an iced cinnamon bun latte or shaked raspberry green tea. I can’t wait to keep the tradition going as the walks get colder.

 If you live in an area with a lot of locally-owned cafes, try finding one you’ve never been to nearby and walking there and back for a seasonal drink. If you don’t live somewhere walkable, stop by a shop for a favorite and then drive to a park or nature preserve you’ve been hoping to check out. Or simply make a cup of tea or cocoa at home (bonus points if it’s in a real ceramic mug!) and go for a couple of rounds around the block to see whether the maple tree in your neighbor’s backyard has begun to change.

9) Smell something wonderful

While I’ve been intrigued by perfume since I was little, I started wearing it seriously in 2019, when I bought a Maison Margiela “Replica” sampler set from Sephora. The premise of the Replica perfumes is that each one - Flower Market, Jazz Club, Beach Walk, and so on - captures both the scent and the intangible feeling of an iconic, romantic setting.

My favorite perfume in the set, by far, is “By the Fireplace.” I bought a larger bottle soon after exhausting my sample, and now it is the perfume that I wear all fall and winter ever year.³ The combination of cloves, vanilla, and woodsmoke feels simultaneously warm and professorial, and if I get a whiff of it out of season it instantly makes me think of cable-knit sweaters, crunchy leaves, and wrapping Christmas presents.

If you like perfume or cologne, consider buying a sample size of a new scent that feels cozy to you, and wearing it every day during the colder seasons. Alternatively, if you’d rather bring the cozy scent to your house, you can pick up a new fall candle, or even make your own using a kit. My enduring favorite is this woodwick Leather and Embers candle from Target - I pick one up whenever I’m in the States, and it makes me feel like I’m reading in the library of an old manor house.

And there are other ways you can celebrate scent, of course! Buy a bath bomb from Lush or make one yourself, and take a long bath on a cold night. Mull fresh apple cider or rich red wine and enjoy a steaming mug of it while watching a favorite movie. Or, in a pinch, just combine whole spices and evergreen branches in a “simmer pot” of water on the stove and let the natural scents fill your home.

10) Read a book of poetry

I love poetry, but it’s rare that I’ll read an entire book of it by one author. Maybe it’s because the volumes are so thin for the price that I’m hesitant to buy them. Maybe it’s because I’ve tended to encounter poems on the internet or in collections like the Norton Anthology rather than in the context of the poet’s larger work. Sometimes, seeing that many poems together feels like it dulls their impact on me - like when I was at Costco and saw a stack of twenty or thirty iPads sitting together on a storeroom shelf. 

Nevertheless, I find that reading poetry is a wonderful exercise in slowing down and savoring life. You can, of course, check out a volume of poetry by a new or beloved poet from your local library and read it in one sitting, or you can pick one up for a couple of dollars at your local used book store and read one poem a day over several weeks. Some of my favorite collections that have made their way onto my shelves permanently are Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, U. S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s The Carrying, and Mary Oliver’s New and Selected Poems: Volume One. 

“Wild Geese,” my favorite poem of all time, is from that Mary Oliver collection. 

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Have a wonderful October. Take gentle care of yourself. Hold each other close.

When it comes to hygge, what should I add to my syllabus?

I want to hear from you, whether it’s in the comments on this post or in emails to me directly at roschmansyllabus@substack.com!

1. Footnote: which unfortunately, due to the nutmeg, looked exactly like ranch dressing.

2. My vegetarian chili, which included chipotles in adobo, Beyond Beef, and cocoa powder, was the top vegetarian chili and ranked second overall!

3. I’ve developed a small but delightful perfume collection, and have every day perfumes for every season now: I wear Marc Jacobs’s sprightly “Daisy” in spring, Imaginary Authors’s citrus-and-sunscreen “Falling Into the Sea” in summer, and “By the Fireplace” in autumn and winter. I also wear Armani’s Sì Passione, which was my wedding perfume, on dates with Taylor, and I’m hoping to buy a local perfume in New Zealand that I can wear the whole trip to help me remember.