Want to know what Danish Christmas hygge is? This is.
If you’ve heard about Denmark or been to the land of the North, you’ve probably also heard the word ‘hygge’. To me as a Dane, hygge means creating a cosy atmosphere and enjoying the good things in life with people I care about.
The high season of hygge is Christmas because it’s a time spent with family, decorating for Christmas and eating lots of delicious Christmas foods. I absolutely love this season and all that comes with it. It’s super HYGGE!
Read about Christmas in Denmark here.
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DIY CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS
I kicked off this year’s Christmas hygge with my best friend Pernille. She’s pretty great at making Christmas decorations, and since I’m a novice decorator this was the perfect chance to learn from the best.
To those of you unfamiliar with Christmas decorations, it’s basically a candle with numbers from 1-24, which you burn every day in December until Christmas Eve. The candle is placed on a plate or tree bark and decorated with moss, various ornaments and glitter. Every Danish home has at least one and in my book it wouldn’t be Christmas without one.
To make it SUPER hyggeligt, we made æbleskiver with powdered sugar and strawberry jam. Æbleskiver, which is nearly impossible to translate, are fluffy round snacks made from pancake dough, and they’re very popular in December.
So delicious. So Christmas-hygge perfect.
CHRISTMAS BAKING WITH THE FAMILY
There’s one day of the year that I love almost as much as Christmas day, and that’s our annual Christmas baking day.
Once a year, my family gets together to bake cookies and listen to Christmas music. It doesn’t get any more hyggeligt than this. For the past, oh I don’t know, thirty years we’ve baked Christmas cookies to the same carols and music, but it never gets old. My favorite Christmas music by far is Maria Stenz, who in 1975 made a Christmas calendar song for every day of December leading up to the 24th. Her voice makes me so nostalgic.
Find the 10 best Danish Christmas foods here.
Dad, Thomas and Elizabeth made vanilla wreaths. It’s a fun process and everyone has a job to do: one person is putting dough into the grinder, the other is turning the handle and the third is catching the dough coming out of the grinder into strips. Esben and Naaja cut the strips into pieces and form them into circles, while mom bakes them in the oven.
This is teamwork, folks.
My favorite sweets of the day is havregrynskugler, also known as ‘oatmeal balls’. They are AH-MAZING! And, aside from my beautiful family, they’re the essence of Danish Christmas hygge.
They’re really easy to make and they taste heavenly. Just a bit of oats, butter, cocoa, icing sugar and cream – a few hours in the fridge and then you roll them into small balls and dip them in pearl sugar. Voila – you have the perfect Christmas sweets.
AND THE BEST PART: THE SWEETS
Someone once told me that I have a sweet tooth like a five year-old, and it’s probably the truest thing ever said about me.
I LOVE sweet stuff, like sweet food, sweet wine and sweets obviously. And for that reason, Christmas is one of my favorite times of year. Danish sweets are not overly sugary like Turkish delights or cotton candy. We mostly eat liquorice (which is bitter, sweet or strong), chocolate (mostly 70% which makes it slightly bitter) and wine gum (ok, that’s sweet alright). During Christmas, we eat healthy snacks like nuts, clementines, dates and figs, but we also have cookies and other Christmas sweets like marzipan, oatmeal balls and confections.
See how we celebrate Christmas in Denmark.
Going through December without gaining a kilo or two is simply impossible, but for me Christmas equals hygge, and eating is a big part of that. It’s totally worth it!
Happy Christmas, everyone x
What’s your favourite part about Christmas?
You’ll also love
- 10 Amazing Danish Christmas foods you have to try
- A merry Christmas in North Jutland
- Winter in Denmark: 12 fun cold-weather activities
- Why the world would end without Danish Christmas food
- The beginner’s guide to Christmas in Denmark
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There’s a lot of delicious looking food in this post! Very lovely and has put me in the spirit of Christmas! Very hygge indeed.
That’s great to hear! I hope you’ll get a hyggelig Christmas, Wade 🙂
Lucky you! That’s a lot of amazing Christmas baking in one post … 😛
It is, and I’m not even done yet 😉
Wow lots of yummy sweets! I love how your family bake together for Christmas.
Me too. It’s my favorite tradition of the year 🙂
Hi there- a bit random but what are the chocolate sweets called under “chocolatey marzipan”? I remember making them as a child in denmark. I’m desperately looking for a recipe!
Hi Gwen,
Basically, it’s just pure marzipan mixed with a little powdered sugar, cut in small pieces, then dipped in chocolate and decked with a hazelnut, walnut, fig or date. You can add nougat or a bit of cognac in the marzipan, which makes it SO good.
I’d love the recipe for the oatmeal balls if you would care to share!
Sure, Monica. Here you go:
250 g of oats
250 g of sugar
100g margarine
50 g of cocoa
1 dl coffee cream
2 teaspoons rum essence
Put all the ingredients in a bowl. Leave the mixture to rest in refrigerator for at least an hour and roll the mass into small balls. The finished balls are then rolled in pearl sugar and can be stored in the refrigerator for about 1½ weeks.
You have a beautiful family! Great post 🙂
Thank you so much, lovely <3 Thomas and I are off to Iceland in a few weeks so I've been soaking up all your Iceland posts 🙂 Love your photos!
The vanilla wreaths look exactly like a cookie my Norwegian grandmother made, handed down to her from her mother. It is called vanila Kranz. I’ve been unable to replicate it because, sadly, my Nana’s recipe was terribly vague. (It was simply an ingredient list and the instruction “press and bake.” Would you be willing to share your recipe and technique? I’d be so grateful- ive been attempting it each Christmas for almost 20 years with no luck.
Hi Christine, yes I’d be happy to! Here you go:
1 vanilla pod
80 g of sugar
75 g almond flour
100 g butter, at room temperature
1 egg
100 g wheat flour
Split the vanilla pod and scrape out the seeds. Put a tablespoon of sugar on the vanilla pod and spread the vanilla beans apart in the sugar.
Stir vanilla, sugar, almond flour, wheat flour and butter together. Gather the dough quickly with the egg so that it is uniform, but without stirring the dough too much.
Put the dough in a piping bag fitted with star piping.
Pipe the dough into wreaths on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Bake in a preheated oven at 175 C degrees fan for 8-10 minutes or until they are lightly golden. Keep a close eye on them.