They threw me a hyggelig tea party, complete with a spread of delicious pastries and coffee, and sat around being charming and telling funny stories. How to hygge: Ambassador Anne Dorte Riggelsen shows TODAY's Meena Hart Duerson an ideal cozy moment. 'But, I’m here to explain it so I will! It is the intimacy you create, several times a day, on purpose in order to make life bearable or even very good.' What does that mean? Taking time to slow down and make little moments in your day - sharing a coffee or pastry with a friend, curling up with a good book, playing games with your family, going for a walk in the fresh air to get a dose of nature. 'It is such a normal concept for us Danes and it’s almost impossible for us to explain,' she said.

Riggelsen was kind enough to let me show up at her home, where she and her team of impossibly stylish, friendly Danes repeated the syllables 'HOO-ga, HOO-ga,' until I sort of got it, and walked me through the tenets of what makes a 'hyggelig' moment (i.e. After cold-calling local Scandinavians, who were unbelievably warm and patient with me as I tried to pronounce 'hygge' on the phone, I ended up convincing Ambassador Anne Dorte Riggelsen, the Consul General in New York for Denmark, to spend the day with me and teach me all about hygge. The first stop on my hygge hunt was to find a local Dane to teach me how the whole thing worked. The key to a hygge meal is cozy, comforting food that has taken care and effort to prepare, and sharing it with friends! Here, Ambassador Riggelsen and Meena share a particularly hyggelig lunch at New York's N'eat restaurant, a delicious Danish Gastropub. Since I love being toasty (as I write this, I'm sitting under a heavy quilt in a thick pair of winter socks, sipping a mug of hot chai), I set out to investigate just what exactly made something 'hygge' and how to use this concept to find more happiness. So what does it mean? It's been translated almost everywhere as 'cozy' and as it turns out, some of the key elements of hygge include warm blankets, woolly socks and sweaters, hot drinks and fireplaces. RELATED: The ultimate trick to tidying up: How this 1 tip changed my life

The little book of hygge book