Mulled wineChristmas is just 8/9 days away depending on which celebrations you opt for.. 24th in Iceland, 25th back home. I try to get both in, being greedy and wanting two Christmases a year. So, today there is little to do other than prepare and go Christmas shopping and really what else can one do when there is snow outside and the shops have candles lit outside their doors and the cookies and mince pies are all ready, the cake is being fed with brandy and we´ve already had our British Christmas dinner. We started early with a small party in the second week in January and ate turkey and trimmings and drank mulled wine into the night.
It was a good celebration of the end of a very hectic time. Ceilidh classes and the ceilidh night had filled up so much time but I am so glad to say that it was a great success. The band were brilliant, giving up their time for free to play because of a love for this lively, jumpy, toe-tapping music. 60 people came and actually our biggest problem was that the room was too small. So we are now dreaming of holding it in Iðno.. a real stage, a big dance floor and beautiful decorations .. no scruffy edge of the world stuff next time. However, we´re not sure if we have enough spare limbs to afford that. Still, the first mini ceilidh was held in a warehouse with stage props, dust and old, unwashed cups scattering the dark corners, in an out of the way place between the oil tanks for the ships and a building site. The next place was an old wartime-inspired nissan hut by the thermal beach, a bit easier to find but building works over the winter meant you had to navigate the mud-bath, the swamp and search in the dark for a road which bore little resemblance to a road, even in Iceland.. Both excellent for their purpose and within our budget but I´d say we can only move up in the world.
I am dreaming of a resurrection of folk dance enthusiasm here .. though lets not call it folk dance please. I am searching for some other phrase - ceilidh is doing for now.. though it means nothing to most people. Any suggestions are most welcome. The phrases in use with other groups are folk dance or old dances.. neither of which seems to capture the lively nature of the thing! I also hope this can involve all ages and be something to help bring Icelanders and foreigners together more .. so far we´re doing fairly well with Scots, English, Norwegians, Icelanders, Slovaks, Russians, French, Mexicans, Swiss, Danes, Germans, Finns, Swedes.. and probably more, trying this thing out.
On holiday in Spain, wearing bellydance silk to a restaurant!
Meanwhile I´ve been dancing belly dance and spend time peering around the stage wings being awe-inspired by the sparkly costumes of the other dancers at Kramhúsið´s Christmas show and I´ve been battling technology as the computer, the car and software at work refuse to behave. Many are helping to try to persuade them that the holidays are not yet here (thanks Óli, Egill and Anil). However, maybe these well-used and tired technological creatures are justified. The weather has been crazy with storms ripping the roofs of houses, tipping over lorries and requiring the radio stations to announce that people shouldn´t go out unless necessary and that children should be kept home from school. Seems strange for the capital area. Or maybe the car and computer have been struck by the Christmas holiday spirit and are on strike until after New Year .. or out shopping along with the rest of the country. Perhaps they are in a bookshop stuck in a queue as the whole nation tries to buy those essential expensive hardbacks with big glossy photos or the latest novels and poems by their neighbours!
Anyway.. I have things to do.. Christmas markets to visit and hot chocolate to drink.., oh yes and glacial forelands to be writing about.
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