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The al fresco nap is standard practice here and Icelanders clearly have it down to a science.
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Click on the picture to observe how to prepare a traditional Icelandic meal of roe and liver (hrogn og lifur). At this time of year, egg pouches are harvested from female fish, mainly cod and haddock, and sold in fish stores around the country along with the liver. The egg pouches may not look appetizing; just remember that caviar is fish eggs too.
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Fjallabyggd (“Mountain Settlement”) is a skier’s dream. Its slopes are perfect for slaloming and there are also tracks for telemark skiing. Winter sporting enthusiasts can also go ice skating or rent snowmobiles. In summer, Fjallabyggd turns into a paradise for hikers. Read this special promotion about one of Iceland’s best hidden gems.
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Today is Christmas Eve. Christmas officially begins at 6 pm. By then families will have gathered around the dinner table to have smoked pork and afterwards they open presents.
Family members of all ages dress up in their finest clothes, after a long and relaxing Christmas bath, before dinner starts.
A smoked pork roast, glazed with sugar and decorated with pineapple according to a Danish tradition, will be on many dinner tables in Iceland. Side dishes include sugar-coated potatoes, green beans, red cabbage and a salad made of whipped cream, walnuts, celery and grapes. A popular first course is cream of asparagus and home made ice cream is often eaten as dessert.
Roasted ptarmigan is a traditional Icelandic Christmas dinner, originally more common among poorer families. Roasted goose is also a popular dinner at Christmas and reindeer steak is gaining popularity.
Christmas ale, a mixture of orange soda and malt, is the traditional Christmas drink in Iceland, although in recent years many adults prefer wine.
After a three-course meal, the presents that have been stacked underneath the Christmas tree, are opened. Traditionally Christmas cards are not opened until Christmas Eve.
Before Christmas Eve the whole house has to be cleaned and the bed sheets washed. Many people get books for Christmas, and after chatting and playing board games until midnight or longer, they creep in between their freshly washed sheets and browse through their new books.
Some families go to church at 6 pm on Christmas Eve and have dinner afterwards; others might attend a midnight mass. Many go to the graveyard before dinner to place a candle on the graves of loved ones that have passed away and honor their memory.
A typical lunch on December 24 is rice pudding. An almond is hidden in the saucepan and the person who finds the almond in his or her rice pudding gets a little surprise.
A water leak at the storage facilities of the Icelandic Institute of Natural History (NÍ) on Saturday night didn’t cause significant damage, thanks to an employee’s decision to come to work early on Sunday morning.
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The Ministry of Finance proposed in December that the Icelandic state acquire Byr savings bank and that claimants be compensated by 40 percent, paid out with bonds issued by the state.
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There are speculations that some members of the Social Democrats are interested in forging a new coalition government with the Progressive Party in addition to the Left-Greens. The current Social Democrat-Left-Green coalition is described as fatigued.
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The song “Je Ne Sais Quoi” by Örygur Smári and Hera Björk Thórhallsdóttir received the most votes in the Icelandic Eurovision song contest final on Saturday and will be Iceland’s entry in the main contest in Norway in May.
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New subscribers to the quarterly Iceland Review magazine will receive the photography book Puffins, which contains a wealth of information about this colorful bird, as a gift. Additionally, all subscribers will enter a draw to win a trip to Iceland. Click here to subscribe to Iceland Review. The new issue will be out next week!
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REVIEWS
When I first heard of the photographic book Legend by Fiann Paul, portraying people dressed in Viking-style in Icelandic landscapes, I imagined it would depict scenes from Norse mythology. However, the idea with the book is to tell a story of how “The Seeker” finds “The Legend” and it feels like a wishy-washy self-help book.
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Fresh back from Brazil, where she was one of 28 international judges at the ‘Cup of Excellence’ awards, Kaffitár founder and owner Adalheidur Hédinsdóttir sat down with Atlantica’s Mica Allan in Kaffitár’s Bankastraeti cafe to talk about her passion and delight: coffee.
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“Lucy” is a video and music installation by Dodda Maggý (1981), the 15th artist to exhibit in Reykjavík Art Museum’s D-gallery project in the Hafnarhús exhibition hall. In “Lucy” the artist explores the idea of the “acousmetre,” a film character portrayed only by voice, never in body, omniscient and ubiquitous.
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