The Land of Fire and Ice: December 2012

Gledileg jol everyone! ( aka Merry Christmas :) )
Christmas is taking Reykjavik by storm so I thought I'd take the time to tell you all about what Christmas is like in Iceland! Iceland has some very unique traditions. Like most scandinavian countries they leave shoes out instead of stockings but the person leaving gifts is not Santa, nor the Three Wise men but 13 very strange little men called the Yule Lads. Each night of the 13 days leading up to Christmas one of the Yule lads stops by to leave some presents in each child's shoe and cause a little mischief while they are at it. The first to arrive Dec 12th is Sheep-botherer, who harasses the sheep. Then comes Gully Gawk who steals milk, Stubby who eats the crust off pans, Spoon-licker, Pot-scraper, Bowl-licker, and Door-Slammer who are all pretty self-explanatory. Skyr-Gobbler comes next (Skyr is a kind of yogurt here, similar to Greek Yogurt), Sausage swiper, Window peeper, Doorway Sniffer ( has an abnormally large nose with which to smell for cookies), Meathook (uses a hook to steal meat), and finally, on Christmas Eve, Candle-Stealer arrives and eats the candles (since candles used to be made of tallow and were thus edible). Christmas Eve is the night that Icelanders have their large meal and give presents. It is of utmost importance that each child receive some new clothing or else the Christmas Cat will come and kidnap them. The Yule lads are all friendly but their mother, Gryla, is not. She is a troll who captures bad children in her sac and eats them. A little more extreme than getting coal in your stocking... Gryla also eats the children that the Christmas cat catches.

Window Peeper and Door Slammer in action

Everybody after the tree had been lit

I got the chance to see three of the Yule lads come down early this weekend at the lighting ceremony of the big town tree by the Parliament buildings. It was a very cute little ceremony, with a quite impressive choir and everyone counting down in icelandic. Icelanders are very big fans of Christmas, the decorations around town are pretty insane. I have discovered why there are so few trees in Iceland. It seems they cut them all down to use for Christmas trees! Haha. There is a live tree at almost every street corner, the Harbour alone has 3 and my school has 4. On top of that it is a decorating technique to tie trees on to the wall in front of your store, so the main shopping street has a tree every meter or two just above your head. Its a little strange but really pretty. What's interesting about trees here is that for the most part they only use white lights, and the lights on the trees are usually quite big. I asked someone about it and they said it's because they still stick to the tradition of making it look like candles on the tree. Which I thought was kind of nice, but the trees do look strange to my north american eye, like they haven't finished decorating or something.

Tree with the "candle lights", notice how much it has to be tied down. That's life in Iceland for you.

They also decorate their groceries. Everything becomes christmas themed this time of year, from the butter to the toilet paper. It's kind of hilarious but hey who doesn't want Santa toilet paper?
I'm in exam break now, which is both nice and awful all at once. I only have two exams so I am not killing myself studying like I normally am at home this time of year. However, the darkness is definitely affecting me these days. It's very disconcerting sleeping in until 1030 or even 11 and having it be as dark as 6 in the morning. It makes it so you always feel like you are waking up early no matter how late you sleep. Then you study for a few hours and before you have a chance to leave the house it's dark again. I have to say I am looking forward to Calgary's sunshine.