Christmas in Iceland

The Icelanders are very big on Christmas. Because of the island's global position, days are very short here at the winter solstice. Perhaps that explains the enthusiasm with which Icelanders decorate and light up their houses during the holidays. All sorts of Christmas lights appear in windows, along with a festive horde of snowmen, Santas and other holiday figures who occupy windows, roofs, balconies, and lawns starting on the first Sunday of Advent in the beginning of December. Advent lights (electric candlesticks with seven lights) shine from one or more windows in virtually every home in Iceland. The crowning glory, the Christmas tree, is only decorated on St. Thorlakur's Day (December 23rd). Traditionally, the lights are lit for the first time on the decorated tree when Christmas is "chimed in" by every church bell in the land at six o'clock on Christmas Eve.
The first two weeks of December are the busiest time. Most families bake special, spiced cookies, not unlike gingersnaps, and every home also has up to ten other varieties of cookie to offer guests. Also part of the festivities is the making of "laufabraud" (leaf bread), a very old Icelandic tradition. These are flat cakes made of flour and water and fried in oil or mutton-fat. The cakes are decorated by cutting a special pattern or "leaves" in them. In earlier times Iceland did not produce grain of any kind and flour was an imported luxury. Therefore, the laufabraud was rolled out paper thin to get as many cakes as possible from the dough. Each cake was carefully decorated as a small work of art. This tradition is still very much a part of Icelandic Christmas custom and often serves as an opportunity for the extended family to gather during the Christmas season.
Most Icelanders eat pork/ham or ptarmigan on Christmas Eve. Pork/ham is relatively new to Iceland, having been imported from Denmark. The ptarmigan, on the other hand, is a strictly Icelandic dish. Originally, only the poorest families, those who didn't have a lamb to slaughter, ate ptarmigan at Christmas. It was a wild bird and easy to hunt. On Christmas Day, "hangikjöt" (Icelandic smoked lamb) is the traditional dinner. Dessert is an ordinary rice-pudding which changes its name for the occasion and is called "almond pudding". An almond is put into the pudding before it is served and whoever is lucky enough to get the portion with the almond gets a prize.