A few days ago, friends and I were reflecting on the need to dedicate one day of the weekend—preferably Sundays—to doing absolutely nothing. The dream? To be at home in sweatpants, sans make-up, with absolutely no commitments whatsoever. Maybe you binge watch some rom-coms; maybe you cook a delicious mid-day meal; maybe you catch up on the best books of the year. Regardless, you’re happy as a clam, chilling out at home. “An ideal day,” one friend sighed.
We were all aware of how good it would feel to take a day off from our obligations—and how much we each needed it. But several of us complained about the lack of time. Others, about the guilt we’d feel for not doing something “productive”—even though deep down we all know rest is very essential, indeed.
While this idea isn’t totally novel, I later found out that, in Denmark—home of the hygge philosophy—it’s the norm to dedicate one day of the weekend to being quiet at home. In the book The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living, author Meik Wiking defines hygge (pronounced hoo-ga) as a sense of comfort, togetherness, and well-being—“a feeling that we are safe, that we are shielded from the world and allow ourselves to let our guard down.” Hygge, in other words, is the feeling of being sheltered from a storm—something that seems very necessary in a chaotic, hyper-stimulated world like ours.
In the book, Wiking also mentions several concepts that are closely linked to the idea of taking time during the weekend to chill out inside: søndagshygge, which consists of using Sundays as “a relaxing day with tea, books, music, blankets and maybe a walk if you’re in the mood”; and fredagshygge, which is hygge practiced on Friday evenings, “after a long week.”
Wiking also notes that these concepts are all about the simple things. For example, “Fredagshygge usually means the whole family curling up on the couch to watch TV. One fredagshygge tradition at home was eating sweets while watching a Disney movie.” In short: the idea is to dedicate time at the end of the week to indulge in the pleasure of hygge in its purest sense—instead of using it to tackle your to-do list or prepare for the tasks ahead.
Creating coziness
Maximizing coziness has a lot to do with being comfortable—so, naturally, clothing must play a part. You can’t be hygge in rigid denim, after all. To that end, the Danes have a special word that describes the clothing you should wear while spending the day at home: hyggebukser. It refers to “those pants that you would never wear outdoors but are so comfortable that they are probably secretly your favorite,” Wiking explains. As in: “She needed to dedicate a day to herself so she stayed at home with her hyggebukser, without makeup, watching shows all day.”
