Vinteren kommer
Winter is coming. I always hear this like a sinister-sounding voice hissing in my ear, which will make total sense to you if you’re a Game of Thrones fan. If you’re not, just know it’s about threat and a warning to be vigilant. No matter how good things may be right now, danger is just around the corner.
Last week the temperatures abruptly plunged after a late, extended summer here. After much swearing, we eventually located the box of winter accessories we’d put in a really organised place when we moved house in June then promptly forgot about. The kids now bike to school each morning in the semi-dark, bike lights on as per the Danish rules, kitted out in an array of impractical pastel-coloured fluff and wool (the impractical 11-year old) and Lego Batman-style Black or Very, Very Dark Grey all-weather gear (the more practical 13-year old). They’re not happy about getting up each day at what feels like 4am, but they’re doing it.
You’d think as a family we’d be used to bad weather: we come from Scotland, where the climate is very similar. Attitudes, though, are poles apart. In the UK, we pretty much get through winter through a combination of surprise, disgust and complaining. Even though winter arrives at the same time, in pretty much the same way every year, we still act as though we have never seen a dark morning, rain or wind before and we hate it. Then we complain passionately about it until spring comes. In between there’s Christmas, which generally feels like pressure from every direction to have the Best Presents, the Best Food, the Best Drink Selection, the Best Tree, the Best Home Decorations, the Best Time. If you’re an adult woman, there’s also the pressure to have the Best Body and wear the Best Outfit, which must also be different for each of the fifteen social occasions you might find yourself hosting over the Christmas period. You must also be the Best Host. As soon as Christmas is over (literally some time on the afternoon of the 25th December) if you own a phone or TV, you will find yourself bombarded by advertising urging you to book your dream summer holiday, shop the online winter sales, embark on a radical new health regime, get yourself a whole new career or even a new partner Right Now. When I think about all of that, no wonder January is a particularly bleak month in the UK. There’s even a designated day – the third Monday in January – which is known as Blue Monday, or the Most Depressing Day of the Year. Data shows this is also the day when the greatest number of people in the UK contact lawyers seeking to divorce their spouse.
But actually, no wonder there’s so much misery during a UK winter. For years I never really questioned the way we did things. One of the best things about emigrating is it forces you to look at all you’ve held dear and realise that no – this is not just “how things are”. It’s how things are in your own small corner of the world, usually because it benefits the power structures in that place and not at all because it’s what’s best for the ordinary, exhausted humans who live there.
So this year, our family is doing a Danish winter. We’ll be here from November through to some not yet defined point in the Spring when direct flights to Scotland from Jutland start up again. We’ll be having a Danish winter, and I’m really looking forward to it.
To prepare, I went to an event last week hosted by my local Kommune on how to not just survive but thrive here during the winter months. It was a really enjoyable evening and it blew my mind on several levels. Events like this don’t happen in the UK, or if they do they’re definitely not run by the local government and they’re definitely not free, with added free hot beverages! As I said, the season of winter is something to be endured and complained about, not planned for and certainly not enjoyed! In Denmark, though, it makes sense that the population renowned as leaders in Design thinking would go into winter in the same planned, intentional way they approach daily life in general. At the “Thriving in Winter” event, I heard Real Danish people who’ve lived through many decades of Danish winters talk about its highlights. At the centre was being with others and hygge featured strongly: looking at Christmas lights, savouring the smell of what’s cooking in the oven and eating comforting food, even taking part in winter-specific pastimes like cold-water bathing and windsurfing. Embracing the darkness rather than fighting against or hiding from it was a key message. “And remember the candles,” one Danish man who proudly declared he was about to have his 69th winter here, piped up. “Candles are so cosy and that is hygge so remember to have candles”. Apparently 39% of Danes burn candles every day, with only 7% of the population claiming they never light a candle.
Two things struck me the most that evening. One was the philosophy of being kind – to others but also yourself – that permeated everything. Throughout more than two decades of Scottish winters I experienced as an adult, I never heard anyone talk about the season as an ideal time to slow down, to metaphorically spend time with yourself and reflect. I never heard anyone tell me to take care of myself during winter or say things like, “If you want the cake, eat it! If you must diet, do it in the springtime.” I’ve realised that the UK is sometimes not a very kind place to live, as painful as that is to admit.
The other was that the true joys of the winter months are not things you can buy, other than perhaps the candles! I heard Real Danes talk about being in nature, going for walks, sitting by a fire with friends and family, and looking forward to the new King’s first New Year’s Eve speech on TV. This was a mini-revelation in itself: across much of the UK and especially in Scotland, levels of trust in and fondness for the Royal Family are not high! That innate trust in society and its power structures will have to be a future column. All of these free, lovely winter things really brought into sharp focus for me how often in the UK we seek happiness in the places we’re least likely to find it (i.e. in the goods we buy) and how discontented and inadequate we feel when we either can’t afford to buy these things or when we get them, we still feel empty.
Winter is coming but for now it’s autumn and pumpkins are everywhere. In my town, it feels like there’s a beautiful autumnal nature display around every corner to admire. Even LEGOLAND has gone all out decorating the park with autumnal plant arrangements and pumpkins. All this seasonal decoration seems to be there for no other reason than just because it’s lovely to look at. “I don’t feel like I’m being sold something constantly,” my friend Louise said about LEGOLAND when she visited us from Edinburgh earlier this year. It’s true. Espresso House, my favourite place, is marking the season with a pumpkinsnurre, but only if I want it (obviously I do). No pressure.
So we’re looking forward to our first Danish Christmas. For our family, the falling leaves and changing colours all around us are also a physical reminder of how much time has gone by. By January we will have lived in Denmark a whole year. A year seemed like a huge expanse of time back then and it’s true that so much has happened since. But I also realise now how little time a year really is when it comes to adjusting to life in a new country. It’s a very long, constant process and being kind to yourself is absolutely essential if you’re going to survive it.
Read my article about the Winter Hygge event here: Thriving in a Danish Winter | Last Week in Denmark (lwid.dk)
(I have a (currently a bit disorganised but slowly growing) Substack which includes all my Found in Translation columns plus my music journalism for FastForward magazine. Follow me at: https://substack.com/@alilewis1) and thanks for reading!
