From Swedish Novent to a Blooming Christmas – a Scandinavian way to make the time between autumn and Christmas more heiter!
Now it is time for cosiness to move back in!
As autumn slowly turns into winter and the days grow ever shorter, my longing for light, warmth and cosiness grows. One Swedish ‘trend’ that can be observed here in Sweden is the so-called Novent: a cosy in-between period from November until Advent, which shortens the wait for Christmas. Because, let’s be honest, autumn is beautiful as long as the leaves are colourful and glowing outside in all their splendour. But once the leaves have fallen and the days simply become greyer, wetter and darker, there is not much left of that initial autumn high, and Christmas is still a little way off.
So how can we make November feel lovely and heiter anyway? The Swedes have a wonderful answer to this, one which, in my opinion, is well worth borrowing outside Scandinavia too. And that answer is called Novent.
Novent is understood as Advent’s little brother, a kind of small ‘pre-celebration’ (Swedish: förfest). You make your home lovely, put up the first fairy lights, place candles in the windows and decorate your home with natural materials: a few branches from the woods, dried orange slices, perhaps a little moss.
It is not about unpacking all the Christmas boxes already or overloading the house with Christmas decorations – quite the opposite, in fact. Novent is a gentle way of easing into the Advent season to come.
Some people may consider this too early, but I think it is absolutely wonderful and enjoy getting into that cosy mood a little in advance. Completely stress-free and gradually, as the mood takes me, more and more decorations appear. In Sweden, this is also called lagom, which means ‘just right’, not too much and not too little.
With warming comfort food on your plate, you can also start to ease into the cosy season that lies ahead. Culinary moments of comfort are wonderful to share with the whole family or with friends: plan a hemmakväll together, a cosy evening at home spent cooking together in the kitchen.
Perhaps there will be a warming stew made with winter root vegetables, a lovely soup, or baked apples filled with raisins, nuts and honey. In my opinion, a rainy November afternoon is the perfect time for baked apples. Serve them with homemade vanilla sauce, then snuggle up on the sofa with woolly blankets.
Another lovely Scandinavian trend that fits perfectly with the new heiter Blooming issue and with November is julblommor (Christmas flowers).
The amaryllis is a very typical Christmas flower in Sweden. If you plant an amaryllis bulb at the beginning of November, then, with a little luck, you can enjoy its magnificent bloom just in time for Christmas. To do this, place the bulb in a pot and cover it with soil to only about a third of its height. Then water it lightly and keep it in a cool but bright spot in the house until it begins to sprout.
As soon as the first shoots appear, the amaryllis can move to a warmer place, for example, the living room. From then on, water it regularly but sparingly, so that the bulb does not rot.
If you would prefer less effort, you can also buy amaryllis already pre-grown in a pot or as cut flowers. I like to arrange them in a simple vase with just a few branches from the woods. A few amaryllis and hyacinths grouped together as a little floral still life on a sideboard or small table also look lovely. It is understated, yet no less impressive thanks to their dreamy blooms.
Have a lovely Novent!
So that we can enjoy this time of the year even more, writer and photographer Elisabeth Grindmayer has also shared a lovely seasonal recipe with us:
The perfect Novent Recipe: Baked Apples with Vanilla Sauce
Serves 4
For the baked apples:
4 large apples
60 g walnuts
2 tbsp blackberry jam
1 tbsp honey
4 tbsp raisins
4 tsp butter
For the vanilla sauce:
500 ml milk
10 g cornflour
1 egg yolk
30 g sugar
1 pinch of ground vanilla
You will also need: An apple corer
Preheat the oven to 230 °C. Wash the apples and remove the cores using an apple corer. Finely chop the walnuts and mix them with the blackberry jam, honey and raisins. Fill the apples with the walnut mixture, place them in an ovenproof dish and put 1 tsp of butter on top of each apple. Bake the apples in the hot oven for approximately 20 minutes.
For the vanilla sauce, whisk 3 tbsp of the milk with the cornflour, egg yolk and sugar until smooth. Bring the remaining milk to the boil with the vanilla in a small saucepan. Stir in the egg yolk mixture, bring everything briefly to the boil once and immediately remove from the heat.
Arrange the baked apples on plates and serve warm with the vanilla sauce.
Firm, tart winter apples (such as Boskoop or Rheinischer Bohnapfel) are best suited for making baked apples.
About: Elisabeth Grindmayer lives with her family on a 100-year-old forest farm in the heart of the wild nature of southern Sweden. As a freelance photographer and writer, she works for magazines, publishers and brands, with a particular focus on food, gardening and slow living. On her blog, Slow Nordic Seasons (slownordicseasons.com), she shares her love of mindful living, the kitchen garden, seasonal recipes and Scandinavian traditions.