We certainly like to get our hygge on here in Minneapolis. But are we the coziest city in America?
Not according to the website Sperling's Best Places, which recently ranked the Twin Cities the country's third coziest metro area, behind top pick Seattle and No. 2 Portland.
Sperling's set out to determine which American city best captures the concept of the Danish word hygge (pronounced HUE-gah), which Merriam Webster defines as "a quality of coziness that makes a person feel content and comfortable."
Their list misses the mark by a few spots, said Julie Ingebretsen, one of the owners of Ingebretsen's Scandinavian Gifts on E. Lake Street, where hygge-friendly wares like knitting supplies, candles, wool socks and cookbooks fill the shelves.
We should have been first, she said.
"We have more Danes. It's a very Danish thing, for one. We have more cold. Hygge is best experienced when it is cold," Ingebretsen said.
"Hyyge is partly the physical comfort thing, but it's also the sense of community and spending time with friends," she added.
So how did the Pacific Northwest cities manage to come out on top?
