The holidays are over, but winter’s not. I’ve always found this time of year to be the dreariest, with all of our festivities now behind us. That’s where hygge comes in.
You’ve probably heard of it, but in case you haven’t, Hygge is the Danish art of coziness + togetherness. With their experience with long, cold winters, they’ve found a way to make it wonderful. (I highly, highly recommend The Little Book of Hygge; also on my shelf next to my scriptures). When I discovered there was a term for the magical cozy feelings I liked, I decided to start my own weekly hygge soup night with friends.
It has brought us all so much joy, that I thought I’d lay out how we do things, so that maybe some of you could have the same wonderful, hygge experiences we do.
First, come up with a food game plan. we decided to do soups, since they’re warm. Our guidelines were:
- Everybody brings a homemade soup, and we can share. If you bring Campbell’s, please don’t take other’s, as they aren’t likely to eat yours.
- We rotate hosting. Host provides any sides they want to (but they aren’t necessary)
- Anyone/everyone/no one can bring dessert
I then sent out a text to 3 couples to gauge interest. I would recommend not doing soup night (on the regs, I know sometimes people are sick, or out of town) unless you can have at least 2 other couples, as it makes for more conversation, but also don’t invite so many couple that you can’t al sit down to eat. It is a weekly thing, not a one-time party. Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, everyone wanted to do it! We picked a day/time everyone was free, and we’ve been doing it for over a year now.
Things have shifted a bit since we started. After about 4 months, we all kind of got tired of soup, and started bringing other dishes, usually not to share, but we still enjoy eating with each other (and there’s no cost/food burden on anyone to feed everyone else). After we and one of the other couples moved, we were so over-worked from our new homes, we paused soup night for one or two months. But after a relaxing respite, we all wanted that social time back again.
Before soup night, the two other couples didn’t really know each other, and none of us hung out super regularly, though we were still good friends. Now, we all know each other very well, and find that we spend much more time together outside of soup night, too!
For anyone looking to get more adult conversation time, or to have a weekly pick-me-up during the winter months, I think you’d find your own ‘soup night’ to be a fantastic experience.
Good luck!
