Well, actually, Christmas Festival with me.

Music is such a time machine, isn’t it? One blast and you can be back at a certain time and place. Close your eyes and you can see the people you once knew, hear the sounds you once heard and be… elsewhere.

This piece of music is like a time machine to me. It takes me back to St Helens in the early 1980s, the time of New Romantics, of Ultravox, Duran Duran and Bowie. And my favourite music back then?

This rather dinky 1950s concert piece, eight carols and a Christmas song. It’s six minutes long, but I think I could hum along with every second of it. I love it. I played it as a Third Clarinet, as a Second Clarinet and finally as Second Tenor Saxophone. I did, once, try to play percussion for it in a different concert band but failed dismally as the race from sleighbells to cymbal to glockenspiel and back again was too much for me to take.

I listen to it now and I can feel the cold seeping in to my toes through thick boots, fluffy socks and a pair of wooly tights under a frankly chapped-legs inducing black skirt uniform. I can feel the fingers freezing to the metal parts of the clarinet, and the (pardon the honesty) condensed breath running to the rim of the clarinet and pausing, as if deciding whether to jump before (in one memorable location) freezing, an icicle in miniature, suspended mid-flight.

We played in concert halls, recreation halls, Town Halls and anywhere, frankly, that needed Christmas music. But best of all were the afternoons and evenings spent playing in St Helens town centre. We huddled together for warmth, played our sets and scuttled off to find heat anywhere we could: usually, the Parish Church social room, with tea or coffee or… one memorable year… hot cream of tomato soup.

And always I remember my Mum and Dad. They took us, and would stand and listen until the chill got too much or they had to buy something, Something, that they didn’t want us children to know about. Something that would surface, likely as not, on Christmas day wrapped in gaudy paper and ready to be played with, made or just enjoyed.

I was a teenager in those days: thirteen or fourteen, size sixteen, gawky, awkward and desperate to fit in. Mum took me to buy pantaloons, maroon babycord pantaloons, and a lacey, fancy shirt. I must have looked a sight, but that was the fashion. By the age of sixteen I’d discovered Remington Steele, fitted pencil skirt suits, and flaunting what my Momma gave me, but at fourteen I wasn’t confident. Mum taught me to sew, and my Band money (collections were split between charity, band maintenance and the players according to attendance) one year went on a padded black cotton quilted fabric, patterned in gold print. I made a waistcoat, bound with black bias binding, and wore it with a white shirt and a red pincord skirt that had just enough grace to swirl. I loved that, and would have worn it until it wore out.

Without my parents I would not have been musical. I would not have the memories of biting cold, the experience of warmth after the chill outside, or the hiraeth of hearing A Christmas Festival and travelling forty years back. There are no photographs, as far as I know. These were the days of rolls of film, not digital. Every shot was carefully calculated, not carelessly issued. Editing and cropping happened as you looked through the viewfinder. Only memories, then. Inconsistent, coloured by my viewpoint and emotions. Entirely personal, subjective, intimate.

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.

IMy 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 summer 2025.

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 the completed picture from a Sip and Paint session I attended a couple of weeks ago. I love these sessions: you go with a blank canvas and usually end up with something that, left to your own devices, you might never have figured out how to do. This painting used only five colours and it was how we combined and blended them that made the difference. I’m a very unconfident painter, so this is paradise to me. Call it Fox and Snow, or perhaps The Fox of Delights in honour of one of my favourite Christmas TV programmes.