Creating a Scandinavian Christmas – Soup Before Supper

As an adult, I always went home for the holidays, therefore it never made sense to buy a tree and decorate. Later on, Mishka and I used my holiday time off to take trips out of the country. Last year we spent the holiday in Durango, CO as we made our way to Santa Fe. Since this was the first Christmas we were spending together, at home, I thought it would be nice to decorate the house and get a real tree. I decided to go with a Scandinavian theme, since that’s my heritage, and Scandinavia and Christmas go hand in hand. So I focused on natural wood, greenery, and “hygge” (which I found out is pronounced “hoo-ga”). I’m not a designer and I’m not an influencer, but I was pretty happy with how everything turned out and it was special to me. I thought I would share with you all what I did, as well as where I purchased items.

I found this cute “God Jul” burlap banner on Amazon. For those who don’t know, God Jul means “Merry Christmas” in Norwegian and I hung it outside on our fence to confuse our neighbors. The burlap held up pretty well, even when we had a snowstorm. If you’re the DIY type, this wouldn’t be too hard to make. The lights were some fun, solar-powered cool white snowflake shape, though when they were lit you couldn’t tell they were ice crystals.

I made this star garland. For the stars, I used paper I had lying around: thin mulberry paper and handmade paper from India. Both were really unsuitable since the mulberry paper was much too thin and the handmade paper was too thick for good folds. But it worked and I was happy with how it turned out, though I think I will make a new one next year with patterned kraft paper. For the stars, I used this tutorial. It took me a few tries to get it and definitely watch the video. It helps. Then I spaced each star 5 inches apart and knotted them with the twine. It was time-consuming but easy to make.

I also made this wooden snowflake garland. This one was super easy because I bought the snowflakes off of Amazon. Like the star garland, I spaced them five inches apart and knotted them.

For our fireplace, I found this Pine Cone/Eucalyptus/Berry/Pine garland on Amazon. I was disappointed when I received it because it had sparkles on it and I wanted to keep my decor as natural as possible (and yes, I realize that’s silly when you’re buying fake garlands), but it ended up looking nice and I quite liked the sparkly effect with the lights. I found these cute reindeer…