Why you should NOT go to Iceland during Christmas (seriously, you could die)
By: Margret Maria
Tags: Food, Iceland, Christmas, Travel, Funny

I come from Iceland or “the land of fire and ice“ as it‘s sometimes called (although I personally believe that´s just fancy for saying the weather is horrible). I have spent a few Christmases in the US and it is always very nice. There is something so comfortable about the typical American Christmas. Good food, friends and family, and of course „joy to the world“. In Iceland it‘s pretty much the same. We too spend time with friends and family, eat good food, (well, food we think is good) and pray for world peace. The only real difference is that all this cozy, heartwarming stuff comes second. Our priority during Christmas is to survive or more accurately, to not get eaten. You see there are surprisingly many ways you can get eaten during Christmas in Iceland. And it all starts with our Santa Clauses.

Yes, Santa Clauses. For we have not just one guy who wears shiny boots, flies around on a slay with reindeers and spreads joy and peace around the world. Oh no, we have 13. And they are in fact nothing like the typical good old Santa. First of all, they are all brothers and are often referred to as “the Christmas Lads” or “jólasveinar” in Icelandic. Each one comes on a specific night before December 24th and they are in fact not human. They are trolls and as you might have guessed, not a very nice group of trolls. Each of them has their own name which also indicates a certain thing they do to irritate you and in general make your life miserable during the holiday season.

There’s one named Kertasníkir or Candle-Stealer, for example. He comes to your home, steals all the candles he can find, stacks them up and eats them. Another one is Stekkjarstaur which translates to (and bear with me here) Sheep-Pole (seriously, I do not know what their mother was thinking). Sheep-Pole’s main purpose in life is harassing sheep. Why? I don’t know. But this is actually a good thing cause if you don’t have any sheep or something that vaguely resembles a sheep you should be safe from this one. Then we have others like Door-Slammer, Spoon-Licker and then of course there is one of my favorites. His name is Gluggagægir or Window-Peeper. Now this one simply sits himself down outside your window and looks. Cozy right?

So, there’s one thing I’ve always wondered about the American Santa Claus. Where does he come from? You see, the Christmas Lads have parents and a cat. And if you thought they were bad with all their mischiefs just wait till you hear about their parents. I mean it really is a wonder that the Christmas Lads turned out so nice!

Their father’s name is Leppalúði. He is a very lazy, small kind of troll who mostly just sits around their cave in the mountains and well, doesn’t really do much. Their mother though is essentially the core of every Icelandic child’s nightmare. Her name is Grýla. She is big and strong, has razor sharp teeth and claws, and a smile that will send shivers down your spine. Now you get coal in your stocking on Christmas morning if you’ve been naughty right? Well, the truth is, if you’ve been naughty in Iceland you can just kiss Christmas goodbye altogether. You see, if you’ve been naughty Grýla comes with her big bag, throws you in, drags you to her cave and then makes a big, steaming stew out of you and all the other kids who’ve been bad. I know you might be thinking this is a joke. But I’m not making this up. This has been used to keep kids in line for over 300 years. And it works!

Now not only do you need to behave and be careful of the Christmas Lads and their mother, you also need to watch out for their cat. His name is “Jólakötturinn” which basically means “the Christmas cat”. And don’t imagine a cute, little, fluffy kitten with a red bow and big sweet eyes. The Christmas Cat is everything but that. He is huge and black and can, as legend tells it, swallow you whole in one bite. Now in order to not get eaten by him you need to get at least one new piece of clothing for Christmas, so to break it down you could say that he is a sort of very strict fashion police…

Now, speaking of getting eaten. Contrary to popular belief we Icelanders don’t really eat anything very weird during Christmas. Just the usual salted fish, smoked lamb and the occasional rotten fish. It isn’t until a month later that our eating habits really begin to freak the rest of the world out. And this has a trigger warning. If you have a sensitive stomach I suggest you skip to the end of this or something, cause this next bit is not for the fainted heart. But a month after Christmas our favorite things to eat include fermented shark, raw horse meat, burned sheep heads and feet, haggis containing sheep organs and of course a lot of blood and jelly made from the insides of sheep heads.

But that is a story for next time. Hopefully you learned something and I’m sure that Iceland is now definitely on your bucket list (just maybe not during the holidays).

Anyway, merry Christmas or Gleðileg jól as we say in Iceland!