Though many people bemoan cold weather, I want to share my adoration for freezing temperatures and crystalline precipitation. After living in Wisconsin and warmer places such as Texas and Hawai’i, I’ve come to one conclusion: I love Wisconsin winters.

In America, we complain about cold without debate; it’s disliked nearly universally. We separate into our homes and don’t like to venture out unless we must. We rush through our routines, and often pass up opportunities to socialize or participate in activity due to the temps. Business at restaurants and bars slows considerably. Some of us become serious complainers (somehow despising where we live while being free to leave).

This isn’t true everywhere. In Denmark, winter is a very special time with significance and meaning for Danes. The Danish have a word that doesn’t have a direct translation into English: “hygge” (pronounced HYU-gah), relates to words like “togetherness,” “coziness,” and “well-being.” The best attempt to define hygge describes it thusly: “an intentional chilling out of the spirit as a way to harmonize with – not combat or stave off – the darkness of winter, and an intentional meditative time created out of the much-maligned but potentially fruitful malady we desperately call cabin fever.” Hygge can also be used as a noun (“hyggeligt”). Our homes, restaurants and bars, even couches or blankets can be hyggeligts, depending on how we use them.