Today I come to you with my guide on how to have a lovely cosy day. Not to be confused with a recovery/pamper day (where you treat yoself and undo all the damage that has been done by bad choices/exhaustion/alcohol) or a lazy day (where you do literally nothing but roll around in bed), the cosy day is all about atmosphere, rather than action. And as someone who loves Winter and rain but is currently in the middle of Summer, I think I'm quite good at fostering the appropriate ambiance.
Firstly, you must prepare your space. I would recommend a bed, couch or any other area where you can create a nest. Completely clear this area of anything but the absolute basics, and then build your nest of blankets and pillows. You can put additional items like books and electronics back on later, but if a cosy day were a pizza then the nest would be the base, and if the base is shit there isn't really much point. Unless you like terrible pizza. Why. I find having a generally tidy surrounding area also helps, because there is an important distinction between cosy and cluttered, and the latter just tends to evoke feelings of stress and claustrophobia. We don't want that.
I would also suggest at least partially removing yourself from the stress-inducing/distracting aspects of technology. If you don't have anything immediately requiring your attention, try to switch off a bit and just have a day to yourself instead of constantly worrying about what everyone else is doing. Be present in yo cosiness.
To further enhance the ambiance, lighting, scent and overall atmosphere of your surroundings I would highly recommend lighting a candle or six. I also currently have an air freshener plugin that smells like cinnamon going and I love it so much I could probably make myself cry about it if I tried. Try not to have any overhead lights on if you can help it, they tend to harsh the mellow.
Now that you've prepared your environment it is time to prepare yourself. Wash your face, brush your hair, have a shower, do whatever you feel like you need to so that you feel fresh and settled. Once you've reset yourself, find some sickeningly comfy, clean clothes. This outfit should have a strong pyjama vibe, but in an 'I could allow someone to see me in this if I had to' way as opposed to 'I just got broken up with and haven't changed or showered in a week.' The whole point of preparing yourself is that you don't actually look or feel like shit, because that will detract from the pleasantness of the day. Think less Bridget Jones, more Cameron Diaz in The Holiday.
If you're a dude I don't really know what comparison to give you but my personal bias would suggest you wear tracksuit pants. Because guys in trackies are easily in my top ten favourite things so I'm not going to not put more of that into the world.
Jumpers and socks are cosy day staples, but tbh I'd probably go for something a bit more like this if we're being realistic about my current climate. Baby it's 30 degrees and sunny outside.
Next you're going to need a beverage. Regular tea or coffee will work just fine, but today I was feeling a bit fancy and decided to whip up a chai latte. Yeah that's right. I put fruit in my Pimm's and I make lattes at home. Who's got her life together? This guy.
It's not actually difficult on any level you just make about half a cup of strong chai, mix in a tonne of honey and dump it all in a saucepan with some milk til the whole thing's frothy and nice. Then just decant your warming beverage into an aesthetically pleasing receptacle, place your elegant glassware on a personalised Swiss holtzbrett and away we go. If you don't have one of those then I'm very sorry but there's nothing I can really do for you. Maybe take a trip to the Alps and pick one up? Idk that's pretty awkward.
An extremely important part of the Cosy Day for me is reading. I love reading and I've been a lot better at it lately (remembering to do it, not the actual act. Always been A+ at that xo) than I normally am, but I still tend to prioritise doing other things in my downtime. Today is the day for literary escapism. Get yoself some magazines, get stuck into a book you've been meaning to start for the last two years or download one you've heard about but haven't picked up yet. Just read something. I pretty much guarantee you'll be like wait what why don't I do this all the time, unless you genuinely hate reading, in which case I don't know why you're this far through a blog post but yolo glad you're here. I've finished quite a few books lately which I may go through on here sometime soon, and just started Billy and Me because I want to finish it in time to move on to the Christmas one by next week. Classic planning ahead, people. It's what grownups do.
Equally as important as the reading material is the rest of your entertainment for the day. I'd obviously strongly recommend Christmas movies at this time of year (Love Actually is our #Madvent movie of the day), but everybody has different preferences when it comes to entertainment so just go with whatever gives you comforting vibes. I'm working my way through the new episode of Made In Chelsea (I love Alik so much I did not see this coming?) and then imma move onto Nativity with Martin Freeman because I've never seen it and all of England keeps telling me to watch it. Basically, set yourself up with a solid day's worth of entertainment, and make it count. Try and get onto the movies and shows you've been meaning to watch and haven't. A cosy day is a time for recreational list-ticking.
Bam. Microwavable beanbag. If you're in a cold climate, one of these bad boys never hurt. Tbh it's summer and I've still been heating mine up every day anyway. Hot water bottles work just as well, but do they have bears on them? Some of them prolly do. W/e. Just don't be cold. That wouldn't be very cosy of you.
Here is a closeup of a hash brown mainly for the sake of art but also to represent that you should eat whatever your heart tells you. Don't gorge yourself for the sake of it, because if you make yourself feel sick that'll ruin the entire day, but if you want macaroni then make macaroni. If you want to subsequently balance that out with the greenest juice of all time, feel absolutely free.
Last but not least, do something productive. If you have properly cultivated an appropriately cosy ambiance and allowed yourself to embrace the right mindset you should be feeling relaxed but in a present way. Do some writing, make a list, plan something you've been putting off, do some of that maths stuff George does for fun with the graphs. I don't know what you do with your life, but I'm working on some novel ideas and the rest of Madvent. Doing something productive will balance out the rest of the movie watching and macaroni eating and make you feel as though you have truly used your day wisely.
Obviously spend your time however you please - for instance there are aspects of a Recovery Day that I would throw in, but haven't mentioned because those will come when I inevitably do a post on that - but for some final tips on how to take full advantage of your snuggly-ass day, I would also suggest the following:
- Take a bath
- Watch movies in said bath
- Set up camp near a window, especially if the weather outside entails some sort of precipitation, whether it be rain or - heavenz be willing - snow. Oh my god snow.
- If you have a fireplace, take advantage of that
- Do you have a pet? Lure the pet to your nest.
- If you have a boyfriend/girlfriend #good4u, do the same.
- Prepare a mini-buffet or perhaps a snack bowl to keep by your nest so that you don't have to get up every time you want something.
- Try to ingest some kind of fruit/water throughout the day so that you don't accidentally end up feeling like shit
- Take beautiful insty pics of your cosy day so everyone else will know how great a time you're having
- Go look at a bunch of pictures of snow on tumblr
- I like to catch up on blogs/youtube videos but I do that most days anyway so idk
- Do not use this as an excuse to wallow. I will do an entirely separate post on how to be a sad little pumpkin - most likely on AVotT - another day, but this is not it. Cosy days are designed to uplift the soul, not soak in misfortune, so cut it out.
- Be happy with where you are. If I spent my entire day thinking about how I'd rather be in Italy it would defeat the entire purpose, so just make yourself as happy as you can be in your current surroundings and embrace it.
- More beverages.
Happy nesting xo
Today's #Madvent Movie: Love Actually
