Winter. Always a dirty word in my book, no matter where we have lived. The worst was when we lived in Pennsylvania. It was a year of record lows, plenty of snow shoveling and icy road driving. The west coast of Denmark has allowed us to experience another kind of winter.

Winter in Esbjerg means wet, windy and very dark. I can deal with wet. I can deal with windy. Dark is an entirely different animal. Beginning mid November the hours of sunlight (sun glowing through overcast skies) became limited. Our shortest days had sunrise around 9 a.m. and setting around 3:30 p.m. That was hard. January was long.

What added to the seemingly never ending darkness was my work day beginning around 2 p.m. due to the Europe / U.S. time difference. I felt like I should get all hyggelig (cozy) when it was getting dark while clients were just arriving at the office to start their day.

With the weekends of rain, wind, cold and dark, John and I didn’t travel much. However, we did do things to battle the cold and darkness, they just happened inside.

Hygge is a word you may hear in the States when Denmark is in the news as one of the happiest places on Earth. There is no direct translation, but it is the art of being cozy in your home. So, we spent the end of December, January and most of February in a state of hygge. We gathered in friends’ homes for home cooked meals, hosted Danish friends for taco night and a movie, lit candles at the dinner table – another Danish tradition to bring more light into the home – read and got crafty.

Take a look.

Until the sun shines again, hej, hej!