Top Shelf: My Hygge Home

We've shared our love of hygge and Meik Wiking's previous books. One of my favorite gifts of 2022 was his most recent coffee table-style book, My Hygge Home: How to Make Home Your Happy Place.

Each chapter features serene images of Scandinavian homes and people gathered together enjoying each others company. Wiking reminds us that being together and enjoying simple pleasures are essential to hygge. In fact, a few days after starting the book, I was inspired to bake fresh bread and cook some soup for dinner!

Beyond the inspiring, there are also practical elements in the book, like a list of items to keep in your freezer and ways to encourage conversation at parties and staff meetings. There are lots of great nuggets of advice and takeaways to apply to daily living.

His discussion of play and parenting hit home for me, and served as a good reminder. Like many of you, I'm so often tired at the end of the workday, but still usually feel better if I spend those minutes playing with my kids. He talks about family dinners together as a "happiness investment." I really love that!

As usual, he backed up his ideas around hygge with research from his Happiness Research Institute, and the book reflects how COVID has changed our lives at home and work in these past few years.

If you're looking for ways to live in your home more thoughtfully, rethink the use of space, or examine how you invest your time--it's a great 2023 read.

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