Hygge Christmas: Your 10-step guide to creating a cosy and festive home

Written by: Deepa Somasunderam and Toluwalogo Niji-Olawepo

Hygge is the epitome of winter wellness. We wanted to bring you a guide that helps you create a cosy, calm and restorative home space for Christmas: a place where family and friends can relax and gather to enjoy the festive spirit.

Keep reading for our top tips featuring a number of POC lifestyle creators to help you hygge-ify your home.

Hygge-ify your Christmas Tree

Whether you have a big family or your solo this Christmas, decorating your tree should be a meaningful event you cherish. Take some time to plan and design what you want your Christmas tree to look like. This should also set the foundation for your decor this Christmas.

You can go classically red and white of course but you can also switch it up. Trying earthier colours like rust, taupes, rich blues and honeyed tones all of which happen to also be key colour trends for 2024. Cosy textures like velvet baubles will elevate your tree and give it a warmer feeling. Select your colour palette for the tree and try to repeat the same colour all through the tree for a cohesive look and finish it off with ribbons and textured ornaments all within your colour theme.

But of course these are just ideas and the most important thing is to follow your heart when it comes to decor. In this YouTube video, influencer and YouTuber, Young Lady Business, takes us through the journey of creating a whimsical winter wonderland theme for her Christmas home. She used a beautiful flocked Christmas tree and ornaments and bulbs of different colors. Colors like red, white, gold, jade green, and baby pink popped off the tree, giving it a classic “winter wonderland” look. She completed the atmosphere with scentsicles, giving the tree the smell of a freshly cut Christmas tree. Thinking about small details like this makes all the difference.

Jayda Jonet, in her YouTube video, documents her process of creating an all-pinky, shiny, and fun Christmas home. If you have a relatively small space to work with, this might be the perfect theme to try because the bright lights and colors make your room look more spacious, giving it a warm and welcoming glow.

If a big tree is not your vibe this Christmas, try a couple of tiny trees. They add so much character to a space and you can be creative with decorations too: try tiny snowmen and sparkly stars to bring that festive spirit.

Use a warm color palette to create cozy

Nothing creates warmth and cozy quite like colour. The colors you have chosen for your Christmas tree are a great base for selecting the rest of your Christmas decor whether its cushions, tablecloths and accessories.

If you want to go all out, why not refresh the paint in your living room, a bedroom or even just your joinery? Benjamin Moore, the leading paint suppliers, have helpfully curated their most hygge paint colours for you to choose from. Think warm whites, greiges and comforting blues to cocoon you.

Create your own scented fireplace

A fireplace creates the ultimate hygge feeling but if you don’t have a fireplace, use candles. Reena Simon tells us one of her hygge secrets: “Candles, candles and more candles!” Place your candles at key locations such as a sideboard, the kitchen island or the dining table and create groups of candles for an enhanced effect. You can try one luxury scented candle surrounded by scentless candles.

Incorporate woodsy scents like pine and myrrh to bring the outdoors or try sweet scents like mandarin, cinnamon and vanilla tonka bean to evoke the scent of freshly baked sweet treats.

Layer your lighting

Layering your lighting is a powerful way to bring that hygge feeling into your space. Warm, low-lit lights are an easy win and affordable to access.

Start with your larger lighting fixture. You will want lighting that is made from natural materials and have softer edges. So table lamps and floor lamps have wooden bases, linen fabrics and are dimmable. A beautiful lamp is one designed by hygge influencer Reena Simon for Lights & Lamps in London. The design echoes nature in its floral shape and natural materials. Thuy Dao, a lifestyle influencer, also shared this video of using lighting to make her home calm and cosy in the winter months.

Fairy lights are a must-have accessory and not just for your tree. Twirl them in the centre of your dining table, stream them in your garden and wrap them around the banisters of your staircase. And don’t forget to look out for those battery-operated fairy lights that have timers (so they switch on at the same time every day - saving you all the hassle). Check out the backyard of Justina Blakeney, interior designer and founder of the Jungalow for the ultimate fairy light inspo.

Add hygge-friendly textiles everywhere

Now that your lighting is done, the next step is thinking about textiles.

A great way to create a hygge scene is to layer your textiles. Use a combination of natural hues with warmer colors. Let these colors flow through your rugs, throw pillows, quilts, and even socks.

Hygge is centred around well-being and a sense of relaxation, so using natural and serene colors is a great way to create this cozy atmosphere in your home this season. Hues like cozy greens, earthy browns, beige, sandalwood, grey, and others, help create a relaxing and hygge-ify atmosphere in your Christmas home.

You can also incorporate less conventional colors, but ensure that they flow well with the other elements of your hygge Christmas home; like your lighting, your choice of tree colors, and your furniture.

We are inspired by the choice of colors the well acclaimed interior designer Brigette Romanek used to create this cozy space for Audermers Piguet. She describes the setting as “Cali colors, cool spaces, and a sense of relaxed lux.”

We also love how larusirugs founded by Souad Larusi creatively brings cultural and vintage elements into contemporary settings, transforming a room from basic to cozy, nostalgic, and full of spirit. Here is a picture of a larusi rug made from reeds and leather by nomadic Tuaregs. The different shades of brown can help ground more colourful Christmas decor.

You can draw some inspiration from this mix, but in all, follow your heart and do you. This is your home and you want your space to reflect comfort for you and your family, and you decide what colors and styles of textiles do just that for you.

Be inspired by nature

Try to bring the outdoors inside with everything you do. Pick some flowers from your garden, add foliage to vases and use natural materials like wood, marble, linen and crystals when decorating.

Flowers are a great way to bring nature into your home, and we love how these vases of goodness sit prettily on the center table in this room designed by Sheila Bridges.

Justina Blakeney must be a fan of nature, because in this breathtaking photo, she shows us how she transformed the entryway area of her home from meh to heavenly. She incorporated elements like woods, small trees, vegetables and some vintage collectibles, giving the space a welcoming and comforting feel.

When you host, try to use charcuterie boards which add a natural element. In one of her vlogmas episodes, ShaniceAlisha takes us through the process of preparing charcuterie boards for her family and friends during Christmas. Charcuterie boards do not just make great snacks, they also give your home a natural impression, immediately spurring people to relax and settle in for a cozy time.

Create shared experiences

Hygge transcends beyond how you decorate your home; making it all cozy for a relaxing holiday season. Beyond the interiors of your home, hygge is also about the mind. It's about making a decision to unwind and allow yourself to be present, and in the moment, during the holidays. Lindsay McCarthy in her article, A Dash of Hygge, With a Side of Christmas describes hygge as “a lifestyle choice to indulge yourself with good food, good friends, good family and good memories, all in the warmth of a cozy indoor environment.”

Youtuber, Shanice Alisha, in her 25 day Vlogmas videos, gives us tips on how to have a swell time with family and friends during Christmas.

In one of the videos, Shanice spends the day preparing charcuterie boards for her family and friends. In another, she is sporting matching cute red and black pajamas with her family members.

Matching pajamas is an old family tradition yet one of the coziest. It has the psychological effect of spurring everyone to wind down and get into a playful mood. It helps to strengthen family bonds and deepen a sense of kinship and connectedness.

Another way to create beautiful experiences and memories with your loved ones this Christmas is to play games that everyone can participate in. In her YouTube video, Aja shares a list of games we can enjoy with family and friends this Christmas season to spice up the atmosphere and have premium fun while enjoying real connection with our loved ones.

Cook food that is meaningful to you

Prepare dishes that have significance to you: either a dish your family loves, something which brings back memories of childhood or a recipe you're trying together for the first time.

We collected some of the best recipes online, star recipes that will not disappoint:

Prepare a smoky Nigerian Jollof Rice (recipe from Sisi Yemmie)
Try baking this decadent Jamaican Christmas Cake
Sri Lankan Love Cake
This is a great time to try the Korean dumpling soup(Manduguk).
Rice and coconut hoppers (The indian Palappam)
The Chinese Cold spicy mong bean jelly noodle (Liang fen)
The classic South African potato bake
The Ethiopian Chicken Doro Wat
The Portuguese salt cod stew (bacalhau)
The Mexican twelfth night cake

Tell a story

Personalizing your Christmas is one of the most hygge things you can do. Tell a story with everything: your tree, your decor and your food.

For example, you can hang small family pictures on your tree, make sure you're sharing family stories with your children and leave small notes near dishes served to guests telling them the history of these heirloom recipes.

In this post themed “Boxing Day is for beautiful walks down memory lane,” Amaechi Okobi took us down memory lane. He shared a vulnerable story of what boxing day means for him and his family, and tried to recreate the beautiful memory with his daughters through a photo. This is a great way to ensure that the holidays stay with us long after December is gone.

Cozy drinks are everything

Having a warm mug in hand is the start to the perfect cozy evening whether its thick hot chocolate, a milky tea or vanilla latte. We want to inspire you to make drinks that evoke coziness and make you smile.

Here is some recipe inspo: