How to have a Nordic Christmas with Cozy Nordic Lifestyle
Nordic Christmas and holiday season is all about natural elements, simple decorations, and cozy textiles that create a warm feeling together with handmade candles. Embrace the Nordic simplicity and Christmas charm like in Nordic Countries and create your dreamy holiday home with these tips and ideas.
Nordic Christmas is traditionally calm and neutral in color with lots of white, like snow, green, like spruce branches, and brown and grey colors of natural, cozy textiles—Christmas red functions mainly as an emphasis color. Use simple, cozy, practical things but beautiful and natural to decorate your home. Keeping it simple, and using a natural tone, you can create a dreamy, cozy, natural Nordic Christmas for yourself and your family.
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Decorate with natural elements
Enjoying the wintertime and decorating homes naturally using foraged elements is one of the biggest parts of the Nordic Christmas. Use evergreen branches to make a Christmas Wreath to create natural beauty and a Christmas atmosphere during winter. Use. Evergreen branches to create a centerpiece for your Christmas table, twigs and branches with pine cones for twig wreaths. Gather hay and other beautiful dried flora to make a winter bouquet in a flower vase.
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Handmade Christmas Decoration DIY ideas
Nordic Christmas decorations are simple yet effective. Most commonly, Nordic and Scandinavian decorations have one main natural element and some jute yarn or silk ribbon to give the final touch, like in these handmade beeswax Christmas ornaments that are way too simple to make to decorate your Christmas tree. Choose one style of decoration, like Christmas ball ornaments or straw ornaments for your Christmas tree, and a simple star on the top to keep the overall look calm.
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If you do not have enough space for a big Christmas tree, choose a small tree. Many in the city nowadays choose tinier spruce that can be placed on the table or a dresser.
Find simple decoration materials at home
If entering the woods is not your thing, buy some oranges and spices on your next trip to the grocery store. Decorate your home with dried orange slices or whole oranges with cloves and a ribbon around it.
Use white paper or silk paper to cut delicate paper snowflakes. We used buttermilk to « glue » it to the window in my childhood to keep them translucid to let the rare sunlight that we get during the winter season here in the North come through. Scandinavian Christmas decorations are all about Nordic simplicity, so when making the Nordic Christmas, you can enjoy the no-fuss minimalist way to create beauty with the most simple things.
Nordic Christmas decoration ideas
- Paper snowflakes to the window
- Little elves made with pine cones as the body and felt stiched in to a Christmas bonnet.
- Beeswax ornaments made with beeswax sheet
- Dried orange slices in a garland or in a Nordic wreath
- Christmas wreath with spruce branches and pine cones
- Set white linen between the double windows as a snowy ground and set tiny the Christmas elves to hide to see if there are any good or naughty children
- Use wooden twigs to make a simple Scandinavian twig star.
Insider: A peak into Nordic living
The simplicity of the Christmas tree is something that my mother knows well and loves dearly. She has made the red silk roses glued to painted green clothespins to decorate the tree. Only one of the silk roses is left white. The softness of the silk and the rustic style of the spruce make together a perfect and simple Christmas decor.
Choose simple textures to play with when you are creating a Nordic Christmas. It doesn’t need to be complicated. Simple is beautiful and less is more.
Candlelight to create the atmosphere
During the darkening days, one perfect Christmas DIY project is making hand-rolled beeswax candles. The beeswax candles are beautiful, and they do not leak when made from pure beeswax sheets. Use florist wire and pinecones to make simple natural decorations for your candles.
Keep it simple and cozy
The darkness in the North takes plenty of energy, and it is essential to keep warm and make things simple. Big, beautiful throw blankets made of wool, knitted socks, and pullovers are not just adorable but practical against the cold and feeling cozy. It is a good idea to place a basket full of woolen socks for the family to grab when needed. Add some woolen blankets, and layers of cozy texture, folded beautifully on the foot of the bed, ready for a lazy moment or the coldness of the night. The woolen pullovers are a must at this time of year. One of my friends has a Scandinavian-style wollen pullover decorated with a different traditional Nordic Christmas design for every single day of Christmas to wear from December 1st to 24th. True story.
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Get cozy with winter cooking
Day in the kitchen baking some gingerbreads and decorating gingerbread houses or steeping some hot glögg, Nordic mulled wine are the true Nordic days. With cooking from scratch, you get the authentic scent of Christmas to your home in no time.
Rääppiäiset, the leftover party
The following day, after Christmas Day, is the leftover food party, Rääppiäiset. It is a cozy day with no need for cooking, but enjoying the excess food from Christmas Day. Some days, some tweaking is helpful with the leftovers, and I love the most to turn the leftover riisipuuro, rice porridge which is a must on a Christmas morning, into karjalanpiirakka, Carelian pastries, rye crust pastries with rice porridge filling. Rice porridge, also called rice pudding, is the Nordic comfort food at its best.
Christmastime traditions to get you in the mood
Pikkujoulut, the Little Christmas with friends
During the Christmas season, the Nordics celebrate Pikkujoulut (or Lille julaftonen in Swedish), the « Little Christmas » with their friends and colleagues. Christmas Eve and Christmas dinners are reserved for families, so work and friends need to settle with having the “Little Christmas” to exchange gifts with friends and get Christmas bonuses.
Ideas for your Little Christmas party
Arrange the little Christmas with your friends and agree that everyone pitches in with a different treat to make it simple and easy.
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St. Lucia Day with a wreath of candles
December 13th is the day when all Finnish Swedish girls wish to be picked as the Lucia maiden for the year. It is the day of St. Lucia, and according to Swedish tradition, maiden Lucia wears a white gown, and on her head, she has a beautiful wreath made with spruce branches and the lid candles looking like an advent wreath.
Ideas for your St. Lucia celebrations
To celebrate like Nordic, bake some Lucia-pulla (Lussekatter), Swedish saffron buns with raisins to enjoy with a cup of coffee and to enjoy with friends. To upgrade your celebrations, make a foraged wreath with advent candles – it looks beautiful on a living room dining table centerpiece as well!
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Winter solstice, add a bit of hygge to the darkest day of the year
A few days before Christmas Day is the time for winter solstice, the darkest day of the year. In Northern Finland, there is a period of 52 days called Kaamos, when the sun does not rise over the horizon at all. I mean – it is really dark in there during the Christmas time. On the contrary, on Nordic Midsummer, when the sun does not set at all, and there is so much light that sleeping is hard! We fight the darkness with light and make an ice lantern for our balcony to celebrate winter solstice!
Ideas for your cozy dark days with hygge
Unlike Midsummer and summer solstice, the Winter solstice is not especially celebrated anymore, for it is so close to Christmas Day. But during the darkest days, Finns tend to turn to hot drinks. Brew yourself a spiced coffee, steep a cup of herbal tea, infuse some glögg, or make some hot chocolate to create the coziest feeling. The Danish hygge, the word for a cozy home with a content mood and comfy feeling is the best to describe the dark day under cozy blankets with a book.
BOOK I RECOMMEND: Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living - Meik Wiking
Enjoy the warmth of Joulusauna, a Christmas sauna
Christmas sauna is a must if you have your own sauna. In Finland, most of the houses and even most building societies have their own saunas for residents to rent their own weekly sauna shifts. On Christmas Day, there is Joulusauna, a Christmas sauna, with women’s turn and men’s turn.
Ideas for your Christmas relaxation
If you have no access to the sauna, make yourself a warm bath with Christmassy essential oils to reach a relaxed feeling similar to a sauna in Nordic style.
What are your ways to celebrate Christmas?
Are you celebrating the Nordic way? Are you trying to achieve the simple Nordic style or do you thrive with more colors? Let me know in the comments and tag me on Instagram with @blue.tea.tile to show your way to celebrate natural Christmas!
More inspiration for natural Christmas
