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Archive for December, 2012

Gleðilegt nýtt ár! Happy New Year! Posted by on Dec 31, 2012

New Year is called  áramót, or nýár, in Icelandic. Whereas the latter needs no specific translation the former is rather poetic and means “years meeting” or “the meeting of the years”. New Year’s Eve is gamlárskvöld, “old year’s evening”, and New Year’s day nýársdagur, “day of the new year”. New Year’s celebrations in Iceland are…

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Gleðileg jól! Posted by on Dec 24, 2012

It’s the 24th and I’m glad to say we’re all still alive. Some door slamming activity has been noted and I’ve had to make piparkökur, gingerbread twice because they keep randomly disappearing, but other than that we may have managed to avoid luring in any of the local “Santas“. Let’s celebrate this by reading more…

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Jólasveinar, the Icelandic Yule lads. Posted by on Dec 12, 2012

What if there was no Santa Claus but thirteen trolls instead? What if your main task for the Christmas season was not to be good so that you’d get presents but to be good so that you might live through it? What if talk of the Christmas trolls was once officially banned due to their…

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Norwegian Wood – a Christmas Tree from Oslo. Posted by on Dec 4, 2012

Even though I’ve been totally caught in the busy busy busy time of exam weeks I decided to take a small break from university assignments last Sunday and head downtown to Austurvellir where the Óslóartré’s Christmas lights were lit. Óslóartré means what it sounds like, it’s a Christmas tree that is sent from Oslo, Norway…

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