Hygge.

It has been brought to my attention more than once in the past week that I apparently have a lot of blankets. I'd never really thought anything of it, except that I often do wonder why so many people have bare couches, save a throw pillow or two. When I sit on a couch or chair, even in the warmer seasons, I like to have a blanket. And under the assumption that everyone else feels the same way (great assumption, right?), I like to have at least one easily accessible blanket for every couch/chair. So, I do have many blankets.

Some people might say it's a security thing. Maybe it is. But I had a moment of self-revelation yesterday when my sister casually mentioned and introduced me to the Danish concept of "hygge" (hoo-geh).

My so-far-surface-level understanding of the word/concept is that it's the feeling that you have when you are surrounded by a person/people that you know and love, often around a source of heat like candles or a fire—under a blanket. "Coziness" seems to be the closest English synonym, but hygge is more conceptual than that. An awareness and appreciation of the present and living simply. Its root is in Denmark's long, cold winters. What I take from it, though, is that it hygge be created any time of the year.

I like this idea and so have decided that my abundance of blankets is, rather than a manifestation of my own insecurities, actually a subconscious effort to live a more "hyggelig" lifestyle.