Every year, market researchers HUI unveil Sweden’s Christmas gift of the year – ‘årets julklapp’ – with previous years boasting the wooly hat (2003), electronic pet (1997) and robot vacuum cleaner (2015).

The company’s highly-anticipated Christmas prediction very often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, with the gadget selected selling like crazy in the days running up to Christmas. 

In 2021, the gift was tickets to an event, and for the second year in a row, the gift is not a gadget.

The hottest gift for 2022 is a hand-knitted item of clothing.

One of the criteria for the Christmas gift of the year is that it must represent the times in which we live, and with Swedes across the country dressing up warm to lower their energy bills, the gift of the year this year does just that.

“Cold winds are blowing,” Emma Hernell, CEO of Hui Research, told TT newswire.

War in Ukraine has caused high energy prices and increasing inflation. Rising interest rates and higher food prices is leading us all to look for deals and turn down the heat at home.

“We’re going to need these warm jumpers this winter,” Hernell said.

Apart from being a gift which reflects the time we’re living in, årets julklapp also has to be something new (or something which has received renewed interest), and something which has sold well during the year.

In 2020, the gift of the year was a camping stove, allowing Swedes to meet socially-distanced in nature, and 2021’s event tickets represented the light at the end of the tunnel for those awaiting the relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions.

This year, Hernell says, HUI has seen a new interest in handicrafts.

“And maybe, above all, we’re seeing young people hopping on this trend.”

‘Knitted graffiti’, also known as ‘yarnbombing’, is showing up in larger cities and handicraft-influencers are getting attention on social media, with the hashtag “knittok” receiving almost 400 million views on video platform Tiktok.

For the past four years, two associations, Klimaklubben (Climate Club) and Medveten Konsumtion (Conscious Consumption) have announced their own alternative to HUI’s gift of the year, the ‘conscious gift of the year’.

Look back at previous winners of Sweden’s Christmas gift of the year

However, this year, it doesn’t really matter which gift you choose to buy, as they’re both the same.

“Yes, it was a coincidence, but maybe it’s not that odd that we’re seeing the same trends,” Hernell said.

Before you head out to buy wool for a handmade jumper though, there’s a catch. Wool, like everything else, has also gone up in price due to inflation.

In October, wool prices went up by 11.2 percent compared to September, according to Statistics Sweden.

That said, “a hand-knitted item” comes in many forms. It can be something small and simple or something more advanced with expensive wool for experienced knitters.

“There are different price classes for this Christmas gift,” Hernell said.