#566： How to Have a Hyggely Christmas and a More Memorable New Year
Episode Stats
Summary
Mike Viking is the CEO of the Happiness Research Institute and the author of The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living and The Art of Making Memories: How to Remember Happy Moments. In this episode, we discuss the Danish concept of hygge, which is the art of getting cozy, and how it helps Danes survive their long, harsh winters. Mike also discusses his research on how to create lasting memories. We then combine these ideas to explore how lighting, food, scent, and more can help you inject more hyge into the holiday season and make Christmas in the coming year your most memorable yet.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. The holiday
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season is upon us. It's time for getting cozy, making memories and looking forward to the
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new year ahead. And my guest today has plenty of research backed insights on how to take
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each of those things to the next level. His name is Mike Viking and he's the CEO of the
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Happiness Research Institute and the author of The Little Book of Hygge, Danish Secrets
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to Happy Living, as well as The Art of Making Memories, How to Create and Remember Happy
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Moments. We begin our discussion exploring the Danish concept of hygge, which is the art
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of getting cozy and how it helps Danes survive their long, harsh winters. Mike also discusses
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his research on how to create lasting memories. We then combine these two ideas to explore
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how lighting, food, scent, and more can help you inject more hygge into the holiday season
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and make Christmas in the coming year your most memorable yet. You'll want to grab a hot
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cocoa and wrap yourself in a blanket, sit in front of a roaring fire, cozy up before listening
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to the show. After it's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash cozy.
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So you are the CEO of the Happiness Research Institute and author of two books that I really
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enjoyed. The first one is The Little Book of Hygge, Danish Secrets to Happy Living, and
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The Art of Making Memories. So how did a guy with the name of Mike Viking end up being the
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CEO of the Happiness Research Institute and writing about happiness?
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You start to wonder why is it that Denmark often do well in all these happiness rankings
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and you think there should be somebody trying to explore this and there should be somebody
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setting up a think tank on happiness in Denmark. And then you think maybe I should do that.
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So that was seven years ago. And we work on well-being, happiness, quality of life, trying
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to look at happiness from a scientific perspective. I know the Happiness Research Institute sounds like
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a magical place. And people imagine that all we do all day is look at puppies and eat ice cream.
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But really we've got a lot of data and studies and evidence.
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So let's talk about this concept of hygge. I wasn't aware of this until I think maybe two years ago.
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And then all of a sudden, I saw it popping up in the media, in social media posts here in the United
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States. What is hygge? What does it mean? And what does it mean to Danes in particular?
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So I think the best short definition of hygge is the art of creating a nice atmosphere.
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So it's moments where we enjoy simple pleasures in life, a sense of togetherness, a sense of
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relaxation. And of course, that happens everywhere around the world. But what is uniquely Danish is
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that we have a word that describes that situation. And secondly, also, I think that we see it as part of
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our sort of cultural DNA, perhaps a little bit the same way that Americans see freedom as inherently
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American. Danes will see hygge as inherently Danish.
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And for me, when I think of hygge, it's always like, for me, the translation, the way I think
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about it in my brain is coziness, right? That atmosphere that's cozy. So, I mean, do other cultures
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like over in Scandinavian countries, they also have a concept similar to hygge?
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I think the closest is probably the Netherlands. For the south, they have a word in Dutch called
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cheselichat, which I think is the one language that comes closest to having a similar word to
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So what are the components? Like when a Dane says, I'm going to have a hygge night or hygge day,
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like what elements are there to make that happen?
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So I think it's perhaps best explained with an example. So a few years ago, I was in Sweden with
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some friends. And it was December and we had been out hiking in the afternoon and came back inside.
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And we got a fire going in the fireplace. And we also had a stew boiling on the stove. And those
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were sort of the sounds you could hear. And we were just, you know, kicking back, relaxing,
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sipping some wine. And one of my friends said, then, you know, could this be any more hygge-ly?
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And then one of the girls said, yes, if there was a storm outside, because hygge is also this feeling
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of being sheltered from the outside. So I think that exemplifies what hygge is or how it should feel.
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So I think also some Americans pronounce it huggy. And I think we should all switch to that because
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that is actually, you know, sort of the essence of what it should feel like, like a good hug.
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Well, I thought it was interesting, this sort of contrast you need for hygge is that typically
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it comes after like exerting yourself, right? You feel more hygge when there's like more adverse,
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like if there's a bad storm outside, if it's snowing outside, or you've worked really hard that day,
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then you can just feel super relaxed and super, like you can put your hair down.
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Yeah, I think that's part of it. And also, I think Danes use it as a survival strategy for winter.
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You know, we do have summers in Denmark, it's four lovely hours, and then it's back to winter again.
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But so we have long, dark, cold winters. And Danes, I think, use hygge to get through those.
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So being indoors with your good friends, having some nice food, lighting up some candles,
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and sort of taking it slow indoor. I think that's how we get through winter.
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So your latest book is The Art of Making Memories. What's the connection between hygge and making
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Well, I think both comes down to also being present at the current moment. And I think the main message
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of the new book is that we can actually influence what we and our friends and our family remember
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and become sort of memory architects. And I think, you know, I spoke recently to a Polish woman who had
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read the book, and she was reminded of a time when she was about eight years old, and she was having
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dinner with her mom and her sister. And they're having a good time, they're laughing, they're feeling
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happy. And then her mother says to them, I hope you remember this moment. And here we are 30 years
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later, she still remembers that moment, because the mother made her pay attention to it. And I think
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that's a very sort of simple, but very effective tool in terms of making memories or ensuring that
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people remember certain things. Of course, it's also a tool that can be overused, because if you every
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time you sit down with your kids say, I hope you remember this moment, they're going to tell you to
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shut up. But but used every once in a while, I think it's really powerful. And it's it's also a
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tool of hygge. You know, you'll notice how hygge this is, notice how much we're actually enjoying
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this moment. Danes have a habit of calling out hygge when when they feel it.
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Well, you talked about too, in the art of making memories is idea of nostalgia. And nostalgia is a
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weird emotion, because you both you feel both happy and sad at the same time, sort of a longing for
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that time. And yeah, for me in my life, I when I think of like memorable and nostalgic moments,
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it's kind of got that hygge feeling to it. It's cozy. I'm with my family at Thanksgiving in my
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grandpa's ranch in New Mexico, smelling pinion wood burning in his wood burning stove, and pancakes.
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It's nostalgic, and it's cozy as well at the same time.
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Yeah. Yeah, you're right. It's one of the more interesting emotions, because it has
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complexity to it that we don't see with with some of the other emotions. And it is bittersweet.
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But it's interesting what you mentioned about your your grandfather's ranch and that, you know,
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part of the memory is the scent, the smell of the wood burning. Because that's also also one of the
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patterns in why we remember some things, we remember things through association. So perhaps today,
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if you smell wood burning, you would be reminded of your grandfather's ranch in New Mexico.
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I do. Every time I smell pinion wood, that's what I think of, I go immediately to that. And your
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institute has done research on nostalgia, that when someone's going through a hard time, they're feeling
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down, feeling nostalgic, thinking about a good time in the past can actually boost their happiness,
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Yeah. So we see that people use happy memories as a sort of happiness bank. So when we're feeling
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down, when we're feeling sad or lonely or sort of negative emotions, we use happy memories to
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counteract those feelings. And we can see overall, people who are able to retrieve happy memories are
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happier overall. And what we also see is one of the things that people struggle with when they are
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living with depression is, of course, they are feeling unhappy right now, but they actually also
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have trouble remembering any time in the past they were happy. So hopefully, with this book, we can
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also help people retrieve some of the happy memories they have experienced in the past.
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So what does the research say about how to make memories last and be more meaningful? So you
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mentioned association, right? So we associate sense, but anything else that the research has found?
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Yeah, it's really interesting to see when we look and talk with people who are 100 years old and ask
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them about their life stories and ask them about their memories. There is a huge bump around 15 to 30 years
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old. So we have a lot of our memories from that period in life. And one of the reasons for that is that
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it's that period in life, we have a lot of first experiences. So, you know, first job, first apartment,
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perhaps first car, first kiss. Mine was with Christy Lee, I was 16, and she was an Australian girl.
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Whereas in our 40s and our 50s, we don't have so many first experiences. And first experiences just stick
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better to memory. And that's also one of the reasons why we can feel or experience that life seems to
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speed up as we get older. And so, so I think one of the ways to ensure that sort of time slows down,
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and we sort of create more meaningful, memorable moments, also in our 40s and our 50s, is, of course, to
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seek out new experiences. And that can be, of course, traveling to destinations we haven't been before, but it
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can also be new experiences in a gastronomical sense. So trying out new food we haven't tried before.
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So novelty is a powerful memory-making tool, doing new things.
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I mean, how do you inject novelty into Hugo? Because whenever I think of Hugo, I think of like,
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just like you're doing the same thing. You're in your house, you're wearing your hoodie,
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you got a fireplace going. So how do you inject novelty into that?
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I think you go about it by using some of the other tools to either make happy memories or retrieve
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happy memories. So one of the tips in the book is to, you know, your brain works a little bit like a,
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or your memory works a little bit like a muscle. So the more you think of something, the more you
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talk about a certain memory, the more likely that memory is going to be retrieved in the future,
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the more likely that it's going to be stored in your long-term memory. And I'm sure you have a lot
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of photos on your phone. I definitely have a lot of photos on my phone. But, you know, back in the
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eighties, when I was growing up, we used to have these old school photo albums that you actually
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sat and looked at together as a family. And so one of the tips in the book is to curate the happy
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hundred. And that means, you know, it could be here between Christmas and New Year's, get out your
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phones with your family and go through the pictures from the past year and decide which were actually
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our 10, 50 or a hundred happiest moments in the past year and get those photos printed out and put
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in an old school photo album. I think that's a great exercise if you have kids to sort of get their
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insight or get their input to what did we actually enjoy this year? What were the fun,
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happy moments? And put them in an old school photo album.
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And that's, that's, that's definitely more hygge because hygge is all about tactile, tactile.
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That will be, that will be a hygge-ly activity together with the kids.
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All right. So it's the holiday season. It's Christmas time. And that's a time that's all
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about coziness and memory. So I thought it'd be fun to apply the principles in your books
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to help listeners have the most hygge and memorable Christmas ever. So what can people do to make their
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home feel more cozy at Christmas time? So I think one of the easy steps is to go Viking crazy on the
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candles. So Danes associate hygge with candlelight. So the more warmer the light, the softer the light,
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the more hygge-ly it's considered. So we use a lot of candles. In Denmark, we actually use twice as
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many candles as number two in Europe. Um, so, um, I think getting out the candles is, is, is the first
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step. And, and I know it's a very sort of simple, uh, thing, but it's interesting to see how it
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actually impacts how families interact. Um, so I spoke to a Canadian a couple of years ago who had
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read hygge and because of the focus on lighting and candles in the book, he went out and he bought some
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chandeliers and started to light candles for dinner at home. And, um, and him and his wife,
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they have three teenage sons. And when this guy, he started to light the candle, the boys,
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his sons, they started to tease him, you know, dad, what's going on with the candles? Do you want to
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have some romantic time with mom? Should we leave? But he says, eventually the boys, they started to
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light the candles and it became this sort of ritual of food and fire. And more importantly, he says now
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their family dinners last 20 minutes longer because the atmosphere, the candles puts the
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boys in a storytelling mood. So instead of just sitting down, shuttling down their food,
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they sit down, they, uh, they, they talk about the day, they, they sip their wine. And I think
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it's really fun and interesting to hear that from several sources, how a candle can actually,
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um, change how a family interact. So I think that's the, that's one way, uh, easy step towards
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a, a more hoogly Christmas. Uh, and also just put up decorations in general. I've noticed in my own,
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whenever my experience, whenever I put a Christmas decorations in the house, it makes the house feel
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smaller, right? Cause you got a big giant tree and you have all this greenery everywhere. And just
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that fact, it kind of closes things. Then it just feels, you feel a little more cozy in your house.
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And I, yeah, I can account to the, the lighting can, uh, the candles can really make a hoogly
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Christmas. Uh, we have a Christmas party every year. And one year we ended with singing Christmas
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carols and we gave everyone candles and turn off the lights. And it was really nice.
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It's also interesting to see, uh, for my latest book, uh, I collected more than a thousand happy
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memories from all over the world. Um, I think we have memories from 75 different trees or something
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like that. A lot of them were actually on sort of evenings where people had lost, um, power and
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lost the electricity and, and brought out candles and sat, uh, and, and talked about family anecdotes
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and sort of went completely old school in terms of entertainment. Um, so that, that, that sounds a
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little bit similar to what you're describing at the Christmas party.
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So what about hoogly Christmas smells? What are some of those you think?
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Oh, I mean, to Danes, it would be cinnamon and orange. And, um, I think it was actually
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interesting to see, uh, when hygge exploded, uh, as it did, uh, with, with the books and, and, and
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people globally sort of embraced hygge and the financial times, uh, wrote that the hygge craze and the
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love of Danish pastry had actually driven up the price of cinnamon on the global market. I thought
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that was really, really hilarious that, that a book, uh, could, could drive up the price, uh, of spice,
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but yeah, cinnamon and, um, and oranges, uh, I think, uh, uh, are some of the things that Danes
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Yeah. I think here in America, for me, at least, uh, the smell of a Christmas tree,
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And then also, yeah, cinnamon too, as well. And there's something interesting too, what I,
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when I, this is sort of my own experience, like the smell of Christmas decorations.
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I don't know that for all they have, they, for a reason they have a smell because I think
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they all are, they're infused with like cinnamon and all those spices, but, um, whenever you
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pull them out and they just kind of just hit you in the face, it's like, ah, Christmas is
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Yeah. And then you're going to have the, the memory through association or memory through
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scent. Um, you know, we smell something, we hear something, we taste something, and then
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we are instantly transported back, uh, to, uh, a certain memory. You know, if you put
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on the, the music you heard in high school, then, uh, some, some memories, uh, are likely
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What about like sounds? Do you have like sounds you associate with Christmas and
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Oh, I guess it would be the carols. And I mean, the, the, the, the classic music tracks
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you hear during Christmas. I think that, yeah, that, that triggers certain, uh, Christmas
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Food is an important part. If you're going to, in fact, you, you offer recipes throughout
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the book. Um, so like what, what's the type of food you want to eat during Christmas time
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I mean, if, if you're going for a Hughley Christmas, then you need to go, you know, sort
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of classic traditional Danish Christmas. And that is sort of, uh, duck or, uh, roasted
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pork, uh, and sort of, uh, potatoes that are loaded with, with sugar and, and, and red
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cabbage. So sort of a really sort of traditional set of, of courses you have to have for Christmas.
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But if you want to make sort of a more memorable, uh, Christmas, then you would have to sort
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of seek out new experiences and, and try sort of new ingredients. Uh, but of course, I think
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in many families that will call, that would create a small, uh, you know, revolution, uh,
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and, uh, an outcry from, from half the family. So perhaps better to stick with tradition for
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Well, yeah, I mean, that's a, that's a hard balance. You had memorable things, but you also
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want to respect tradition. Have you found a way to, I mean, you're in talking to people
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in your own experience, have you found a way to balance that?
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I mean, one thing you could do is to, to introduce a theme for Christmas. Uh, so you, you stick
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with so many traditions, uh, but then you add one element that makes it, uh, distinguishable
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from, from the other years, uh, some sort of, uh, element. Um, but I think, you know, Christmas,
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it's one day of year. Uh, so, so maybe best to stick with tradition for that one.
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Uh, what about any other activities that you, that in date in Denmark, they associate Christmas
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Oh, I mean, we have, uh, Christmas lunches, uh, like I'm sure you do in, in, in the States
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as well. Um, of course in Denmark, we bring out, uh, and don't try to pronounce this word
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at home, but we bring out smörbröl, which is sort of open faced sandwiches, you know, Danish
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herring and snaps and, uh, uh, get quite drunk during, uh, Christmas parties and Christmas
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lunches. So, uh, that, that's also a cornerstone of the Danish Christmas tradition.
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And I guess, you know, bringing kind of this art of making memory so you can inject some
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new things maybe, but also another important thing to do during the holidays is to make
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sure you track it, take pictures, make notes, because if you don't, you're going to forget
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Right. And also, I mean, you know, I think the time between Christmas and new year's is
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a good time to plan a memorable year. So what kind of activities can we do in the coming
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12 months that we are likely to remember, uh, 10 years from now? Um, and one of the, one
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of the suggestions in the book is to create something I call the Apollo picnic. Um, and
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you do it on, on July 20th. And the concept is you, you ask your friends and family, uh,
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for a picnic and everybody brings a dish or an ingredient they have not tried before. So
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it's going to be a new experience. You know, somebody brings Danish herring, somebody brings,
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I don't know, habanero chili. Um, and that will also mean that you're going to push your
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comfort zone a little bit. If we do something that scares us, we are also more likely to
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remember it in the future and habanero chili should definitely scare you. Um, and you do
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it on, on July 20th. Um, because that is the anniversary for the moon landing. So the
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Apollo mission. Uh, so in the future, when you hear about the moon landing and the Apollo
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mission, that is going to trigger your memory of the Apollo picnic. Uh, so building in triggers
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like that is, is one of the tools you can apply if you are interested in making a memorable
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year. And I think we all are, I think, you know, I think we're all striving to achieve
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sort of an unforgettable life. Uh, I think we all like to have sort of memorable moments
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to look back on. Uh, and it's also our shared experiences. It's our shared memories that bind,
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bind us together with, with people. And if you have kids, I think, you know, we're all
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interested in them looking back on their childhood and thinking of happy times. Um, and, and the
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good news is there's a lot we can do actually to influence what, uh, we and our family and
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So, okay. Uh, use this time at Christmas time, perhaps, and maybe even July to plan out future
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memories. Christmas time is also a good time to review memories. I remember as a kid growing
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up, one thing we did around the holidays was watch old videos that my dad took of Christmases
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when we were kids. And that was a way to review those good memories.
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Yeah. And, and, and again, I mean, you can use all the five different senses. Um, so even
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something as crazy as scent. So, uh, so one thing that, uh, the artist Andy Warhol would
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do was he, he wore the same perfume for three months and then never wore that perfume again
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and switched to another one for three months and so on and so on. And that meant over time
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he had actually created a museum of scent or museum of memories. So he could say, now I
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want to, now I want to go back to the spring of 1982 and then take a whiff of that perfume
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and then be transported back in time. Um, I think it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a fun,
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an interesting way of doing it. It's way too expensive for my, uh, for my budget. Uh, but
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Yeah. He got buried with his favorite perfume. Beautiful.
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My mom wore beautiful. That's why that stood out to me when I read that. You know, one
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thing my wife does that's similar is after listening to a new music album a lot, she kind
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of puts it in the memory vault and doesn't listen to it at all for a long time. That way
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it's only associated with the period of time in which she first listened to it. So whenever
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she does take it out and listen to it again, all the memories in that particular period come
00:23:55.860
back really strongly. Um, so let's get back to this idea of hygge being connected with doing
00:24:01.940
hard things because it seems like Scandinavians like to do hard things. We recently had Arlene
00:24:08.140
Kaga on the show. He's a Norwegian explorer, the first man to take unsupported treks to the
00:24:13.240
North and South Poles. And he had this same idea that you've got to make your life hard
00:24:20.260
Yeah. And I think, you know, we also, when we look at happiness, we also interested in
00:24:26.200
looking at unhappiness. Uh, I think our, uh, you know, every human life is going to have
00:24:32.120
periods of struggle and heartbreak and failure and unhappiness. And that's part of the human
00:24:38.260
experience, but it also teaches us about happiness. Uh, you know, we appreciate our happy times,
00:24:43.740
our happy periods in life, uh, even more when we also had to struggle earlier. And I think that's
00:24:50.260
the same point. Uh, you know, we, we enjoy reaching the summit of the mountain because of the struggle
00:24:56.000
up there. Um, so I think there's a lot of similarities there. And how do you make Christmas
00:25:01.460
harder, right? To, I think Christmas is hot enough as it is. I mean, there's so much you
00:25:08.220
have to do for December. So, uh, so I, I'm not sure we need to make it harder.
00:25:16.000
Well, then I guess, so maybe we can use it to reframe, right? So I know people get stressed
00:25:20.400
out during the holidays. Like I got to do all this stuff, got to put up the lights, got to put
00:25:23.960
up the tree. Right. Chris, I'm just like, no, this is great because it's all going to lead
00:25:28.040
up to this moment where I can have this super cozy, memorable day with my family.
00:25:32.380
Yeah. True. But I mean, what you're saying there actually also reminds me about something from,
00:25:37.900
from the latest book, uh, on what we call chore wars. So, uh, why couples fight over how big a
00:25:45.540
share of the household chores they do. Um, so if, if you ask people, how big a share of the
00:25:53.520
cooking do you do, or how big a share of the cleaning do you do and how big a share of the
00:25:57.920
grocery shopping do you do? And we add that up between men and, and, and women, it always
00:26:04.100
adds up more to more than a hundred percent. So, you know, I'll say, uh, I do, you know,
00:26:11.880
70% of the cooking and, uh, Helena, my girlfriend will say she does 50% of the cooking. So that
00:26:18.660
adds up to 120%. And we see that for every chore on the list. And the reason why we, we, um,
00:26:26.880
we, we get to that number is, and we, we, we remember every time we did a chore, uh, because
00:26:35.740
it's much more vivid, uh, experience. Uh, we, uh, we, we, we endured the struggle of putting
00:26:42.760
up the Christmas tree or getting the Christmas tree or making sure that the kids got all the
00:26:48.020
presents they wanted. Um, but you know, when somebody else does the chore, you just, you
00:26:54.520
know, can check it off the list. Um, so, so that's one of the reasons why we fight over
00:27:00.080
So I guess during the holidays, take that consideration, right? And if you're getting
00:27:03.720
angry at your, your spouse, cause they're like, not, you don't think, but you know,
00:27:08.320
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's actually writing this book made me, I think a little bit more
00:27:12.260
tolerant, uh, because, because I understand now how beautifully flawed our memory also
00:27:19.820
is. Um, so I've learned a little bit more about, uh, I think being tolerant of other
00:27:25.620
people's versions of history and the past and acknowledging that I don't necessarily have
00:27:36.660
Go back to this idea of doing hard, making Christmas harder. Here's a fun way to make it
00:27:40.700
harder that I, a tradition that I I've seen in a family, uh, before they could open Christmas
00:27:46.160
presents, the family had to run a marathon together. So it's like, it wasn't, they didn't
00:27:51.840
run, it was like, it was collectively, right? So each of them had to run enough miles collectively
00:27:56.260
so that it was a marathon and then they could open Christmas presents. And I was, I mean,
00:28:00.200
I would never do that, but I thought it was a great memory for them. A great tradition.
00:28:04.800
Yeah. It's nice. It's nice. It's a good idea. It's a good idea. I need to call all the
00:28:10.620
cousins I haven't spoken to in a few months. Yeah. Get them. Get them. We're going to run a
00:28:15.180
well, you can snowshoe, I guess, cause it's going to be snowy there in Denmark. Uh, you
00:28:20.120
can snowshoe a marathon. Well, Mike, where can people go to learn more about the book and
00:28:23.920
your work? Well, I mean, if they're interested in happiness research, uh, visit, uh, happiness
00:28:28.920
for search institute.com. So all our reports and, and findings are available on our website.
00:28:35.180
Um, and of course they can check out the books at various, uh, booksellers if they're interested
00:28:40.120
in, in taking a deep dive into the Danish figure or, uh, the art of making memories as well.
00:28:46.480
Mike Viking. Thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure.
00:28:50.240
My guest today was Mike Viking. He's the author of the books, the little book of hygge,
00:28:53.680
Danish secrets to happy living and the art of making memories, both available on amazon.com.
00:28:58.060
You can find out more information about his work at his website, happinessresearchinstitute.com.
00:29:02.280
Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash cozy. We can find links to resources. We can delve
00:29:18.060
Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Check out our website at
00:29:21.700
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00:29:25.820
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00:29:59.520
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