ICELAND

Joy Around the World

Featuring Iceland

Iceland

• Christmas in Iceland lasts for 26 days
• Iceland has 13 Yule Lads (the equivalence of having 13 Santa Clauses!)
• You're almost guaranteed a white Christmas in Iceland

13 Days

of Christmas in Iceland

Santa Claus --> Yule Lads

• The northern lights often appear in Iceland during the holiday season

• You can spend your Christmas vacation in Iceland visiting ice caves, going glacier hiking or snowmobiling

• Icelandic Christmas food is delicious

• On New Year's Eve, Reykjavik has fireworks displays that last for several hours.

Yule Lads instead of Santa Claus

Icelandic Yule Lads

• Grýla is a giantess with an appetite for the flesh of mischievous children, whom she cooks in a large pot.

• Her husband Leppalúði is lazy and mostly stays at home in their cave.

• The Yule Cat is a huge and vicious cat who lurks about the snowy countryside during Christmas time (Yule) and eats people who have not received any new clothes to wear before Christmas Eve.

• The Yule Lads are the sons of Grýla and Leppalúði. They are a group of 13 mischievous pranksters who steal from or harass the population and all have descriptive names that convey their favorite way of harassing.

• They come to town one by one during the last 13 nights before Yule.

• They leave small gifts in shoes that children have placed on window sills, but if the child has been disobedient they instead leave a rotten potato in the shoe.

Happy Holidays!

Check out the other countries for more!