It’s November 9th. All the big Autumn Festivals are behind us and everyone is moving onto the next Big Season, Christmas.

It’s a shame, really, that modern Christmas has developed into a spend-fest, a season of consumption and over-consumption that really can’t be viewed as conscious. Once November hits, the skeletons and skulls have left the shelves and selection boxes grace the aisles wall-to-wall. Supermarkets set up delivery spots for the weeks before Christmas and everyone seems to skew their thoughts and plans ever so slightly to what they want, what they’re doing, what they would prefer for Christmas.

I’m getting in early.

I want a simple, intentional and grounded Christmas.

I want a Christmas that I don’t have to rush to do, where the presents I buy have been carefully considered and (at the risk of losing the element of surprise) are things I know the recipients either want or need.

I want a Christmas where the events we choose to do as a family or individually are good for us all, either because they cost very little or because the cost is well worth it (Theatre trip, I’m looking at you).

I want a Christmas where food is simple, enjoyable and the process of creating is as much a part of the enjoyment as the eating.

I want a Christmas where the people I meet or spend time with are as happy to spend time with me as I am with them. No obligatory visits, just visits for love and appreciation of their role in my life.

Most of all, I want a Christmas that is meaningful to me: that means (for me) a healthy focus on the spiritual side of the season: a focus on the celebration of Jesus as God’s gift to me and a recognition of the emotions of winter as a season of hibernation, privacy and restoration.

How am I going to achieve all that?

• Presents have been bought and will be wrapped by December 1st. (I start early, in July or August most years, buy the presents little by little and spread the cost so December is not a budgetary nightmare)
• My December Menu Plan has been written and lies ready for compiling shopping lists. I usually only plan a week at a time, but taking the stress out of planning meals is one little way to free up brainspace and time to enjoy the season.
• Food and drink has been ordered. Yes, I did spend last week booking delivery slots as close to Christmas as I could get, organising lists that I carry permanently in Evernote and update annually and adding a few items that are unperishable to the week’s shopping. Do it now, so you don’t have to worry later.
• December activities were actually booked in September or early October, and have been chosen because I know we will all enjoy them. We’re going on a pre-Christmas Ghost Tour, watching The Woman in Black as a Romjul treat and I’m being taken to a rather posh version of A Christmas Carol at St George’s Hall (I’m rather pleased with that one. Peter is taking me as part of our Christmas present to each other, and it’s an actual Concert Hall where Dickens would have performed extracts from his books in real life!)
• My blog theme for December has been chosen, and I’ve begun compiling quotes, ideas and posts in readiness. This year (and hopefully for the full month) I’m looking at a Christmas of Light. Light symbolises so much to so many people, so I want to see what a difference focusing on it can make to my celebration of Christmas.
• Of course, a major part of Christmas as a festival of light for me is the celebration of Jesus as the Light of the World, and the two comings of Jesus, as a baby and His future Second Coming. Advent, the weeks before Christmas, are about readiness for both of those. It’s no use my house being decorated to remember a Baby born 2,000 years ago if I’m not ready to honour a Jesus who is very much alive to me now and will return again. Hopefully between personal study and public worship, I can track a path between past, present and promised future to feed my soul. I’ve got a couple of Advent readers to follow, as well as some more material reminders of Jesus as the Saviour.

Hopefully my end of the year will pass in peaceful and profitable realignment to my values and intentions. I’ve found myself retreating from social media recently, living more in reality than online and finding my strength in inner contemplation, outer friendship in local activities and living intentionally. A withdrawing to create a stronger base for whatever I do next.

There are always books that are useful in creating and curating a hibernation, and these are the ones I’m enjoying using or dipping into currently:

• Merry Midwinter by Gillian Monks. It’s still a great book for taking you through the festivals of winter and getting you to look beyond the public face of consumerism to the heart of Christmas beyond.
• Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year by Beth Kempton. I like to get this out and re-read it every year, even if I don’t run through all the questions, exercises or recommendations any more.
• Christmas is Coming by Auriol Bishop. This year’s new addition to the pile. It counts down to Christmas from September to Epiphany with ideas, advice and anthology of passages that make for a pleasant few minutes.
• The Christmas Chronicles by Nigel Slater. Need I say more? It’s been a constant winter re-read since 2017. It starts on November 11th, and runs through to February 2nd and Candlemas.
• Wintering by Katherine May. Not a Christmas book, but a wintering one. We are too inclined, in the fuss and the noise and the business, to forget that the feast of Christmas was actually set at midwinter, and was a bright festival of lights in a season of hibernation. We still, despite the rush to do more that society creates, need time to retreat and to be.

I also have two advent reflection books I’m using this year. Both, coincidentally, focus on the idea of a Celtic advent: that we should have/could have a 40 day period of preparation similar to the 40 days of Lent. Advent, thus, begins on November 15th/16th, and ends on Christmas Eve, when full Christmas celebrations begin and continue until Twelfth Night or for the extremely dedicated 2nd February. We don’t allow ourselves anywhere near as long for preparation or celebration nowadays and, indeed, in the modern world the celebration beforehand has almost annihilated the quiet-preparation-and-period-of-abstinence that Advent once meant. Perhaps I’m consciously dialling back on Christmas in an effort to find that quiet rebalance again.

• Living in Light of the Manger by Sheila Alewine appealed to me this year, because it is 800 years since St Francis first set up his crib scene, using real people and real animals, on the hillside in Italy. I will enjoy looking at how the birth of a baby two thousand years ago still has power to affect us personally now.
• Lean Towards the Light by Christine Aroney-Sine has a more grounded, practical approach to advent. It’s less Bible study and more an examination of one’s life now. It asks us to look at aspects of our life through the light of a relationship with God. The power of God as a light-filled, beyond-human-knowledge and yet incarnate with man has been speaking to me recently. I can’t box God, and won’t know what He/She/They are like until I die, but wanting to know Him (the pronouns I choose to use for God) and live in a way that honours His desires and includes the gifts He has bestowed on me… well, I can take a couple of months now to realign my life into a better path, can’t I?

So my physical preparations are almost complete. My spiritual preparations begin next Wednesday, and I’ve got my Advent Box prepped and ready to go. I have a new notebook to use as a Christmas Commonplace book, and I’m going to (inspired by Auriol Bishop) collect and record poems, carols, quotes and ideas that give me joy.

The blogposts for Christmas will start on 1st December and, hopefully, be as near daily as possible. You can also join Beyond the Christmas Chronicles on Facebook if you love Nigel Slater’s book and like using it as inspiration during winter. The Hygge Nook on Facebook is always open to people who love Christmas, cosiness and hygge, and I’m wondering about a Holy Hygge group as well, to share quotes, ideas and responses to Jesus’ love and how it encourages us to hygge together.

How to Hygge the British Way is my gift to the world. I don’t get paid for writing it, I’m not in it for the kudos, financial rewards, to become an influencer, work with brands or otherwise make any money from the blog. That’s why there are no ads, and any products I mention and recommend have either been gifted to me or bought by me with my everyday wages or donations from supporters. Every book I review has been bought and read by me, unless stated otherwise.

I do get a couple of pennies each time someone buys from the Amazon links on my page, as an Amazon Affiliate, but otherwise if you’d like to support me, I like to give something back in return. That’s why I write books. It always feels good if you get a book back in return for some money. You can find a full list of my books at my Author’s Page on Amazon, but especially recommended for this time of year are:

Cosy Happy Hygge: Setting up a rhythm to life and rituals to enjoy it to make for a more balanced life that handles waves and storms better. Lent is a season of rituals and resets. The book has small and easy ways to make your life flow with grace and happiness, which lead to more hygge.

Happier: Probably my most personal book, it’s the story of how I used hygge and the little things in life to help boost my happiness. I still go back and reread to remind myself what I need to do to be a happy human. And it’s always the little things.

My Christmas books are always available: Have Yourself a Happy Hygge Christmas is a good place to start, on how to make the season cosier, happier. Celebrating a Contagious Christmas was written during covid year, but has useful advice on celebrating when times are hard anyway and Enjoying a Self-Care Christmas is a short e-book on keeping Christmas simpler, easier and better for you, your waistline and your budget. It even includes 25+ suggestions for self-care activities over Christmas, as simple as sipping tea, keeping a list journal or lighting a candle. Bigger is not always better for Christmas.

I’m currently working on two book projects: I have a hankering to rewrite 50 Ways to Hygge the British Way, so it’s not available at the moment, but even dearer to my heart and my next stated aim is to finish and publish my next book, Simple Plus Cosy = Hygge. It will be about homemaking and how the home we create shapes the hygge we have. Hopefully it will be finished by the end of spring/summer.

If you’d like to support me, but don’t want to buy a book, I have a Paypal.Me account as Hygge Jem. Every little helps, so even a few pence goes towards the books, goods and courses I use and recommend on the site. I’m grateful for every little bit that brings me closer to my dream of full-time writing, and I know I couldn’t still be writing if it weren’t for the support of many readers and friends out there. Thank you all for every little bit of support, emotional, physical and financial, you give me.

If you’ve enjoyed this article, don’t forget to share it or save it so others can enjoy reading, thinking about and living hygge as well.

The photo between post and promotions is by Laura Nyhuis on Unsplash. I’m using it from now until January as a real reminder of the power of light. I loved the simplicity of the shot, the focus on the one candle, the reminder that there are many lights out there if we open our hearts to them and the combination of candle and nature in creating a cosy Christmas.