What does hygge mean to you?

I'm in Canada and I have never seen that term before.

(you''ll have to be happy with my username )

Hygge was a media-hype craze among the middle classes in Britain in the last year. gaining ground in the US apparently. It is supposed to be one of those concepts that does not have an exact translation into English. It kind of means "cosiness" I suppose. A quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture), says a dictionary. It can be a noun - ‘why not follow the Danish example and bring more hygge into your daily life?’ or an adjective - ‘count on candlelight —almost a requirement for that special hygge experience’. Charlotte Higgins in the Guardian said in 2016: "This year’s most overhyped trend is a wholesome Danish concept of cosiness, used to sell everything from fluffy socks to vegan shepherd’s pie. But the version we’re buying is a British invention – and the real thing is less cuddly than it seems." She said it is "the subject of an avalanche of books, hundreds of Identikit newspaper features, and endless department-store winter displays." She goes on: "The first mention of hygge in any text usually comes with a phonetic guide. This is in order to prevent readers from committing the faux-pas of uttering “higgy” or “huggy” – or, worse, “hig”. “Hue-gah”, “hoo-gah”, “heurgh” and “hhyooguh” are among the approximations offered in the (at least) nine books on hygge published this autumn. (The Sun, helpfully, suggests it should rhyme with “cougar”)".

Just as “chic” is the thing that everyone knows about the French, the word hygge must now be affixed, almost by law, to any media story about Denmark or, indeed, anything remotely Scandinavian, whether the subject is clothes, furniture, cookery, travel, or working hours.

Some Danes see hygge as not so wholesome: “Somewhere along the way, hygge became a form of social control,” said a Danish author. “It’s a little like ‘feel-good’ in America – the cult of the ‘feel-good’ book or the ‘feel-good’ movie. It’s a cocoon.”

yeah - I looked it up - hasn't hit Canada and it's not in any of the craft groups I'm in on FB - but they're mostly uncensored so don't lean toward cozy