Christmas in Iceland, Part 1: O Jólatré, O Jólatré

It’s getting down to less than five hours of sunlight a day, which means that I’m really tired all the time because the sky keeps telling my brain that it’s the middle of the night when it’s only 5:00 in the afternoon. However, this also means the Christmas is rapidly approaching, and last Sunday Leah and I attended the tree-lighting ceremony in downtown Reykjavík!

Lots of people were out skating on the pond that day!

Every year the city of Oslo, Norway sends Reykjavík a Christmas tree, because trees don’t really grow well in Iceland. (There’s a bad joke some Icelanders are fond of telling: What do you do if you get lost in a forest in Iceland? Stand up.) Before the tree was lit, a local school band (I think…) played Christmas carols for a while.

I'd just like to draw your attention to that rad glockenspiel, which has the largest tassels I've ever seen in my life.

The choir from the Dómkirkja sang, and then the ambassador from Norway presented the tree to…

Jón Gnarr! The man himself! He gave a speech in Icelandic, and I wish I knew what he said, because all I could tell was that he was going on about Moomins again. The guy really has an obsession with Tove Jansson. That, and I understood when he asked us to count down to the tree-lighting with him, which I could totally do, because even if my Icelandic is lousy, at least I know numbers. Tíu, níu, átta, sjö, sex, fimm, fjórir, þrír, tveir, eitt!