Gleðileg jól - snow, fire and excitement

Norðfjörður

Happy Christmas everyone. Gleðileg jól.

We are in Neskaupstaður which is a town set in a deep fjörd (Norðfjörður) on the east coast of Iceland. I´ve been here once before, in February last year for a trip to the neighbouring uninhabited Viðfjörður. Then it was warm enough, rather strangely, to be outside comfortably in short sleeves. Now, returning in December for Christmas and New Year to spend time with Óli´s brother and family there is ice and snow. Ice coated the road all the way to Kirkjubærklaustur, around a third of the way from Reykjavík to the east then as we drove along the coast passed Jökulsálón we felt as if we were driving through the night, the longest night of the year. Even in the pitch black of 4pm the ice-choked lagoon sparkled beautifully with blues and greys and the odd bright shimmering fairy-light on the icebergs as the full moon reflected off the glistening surfaces.

A walk in the snow

Now we´ve been here for almost a week. Snow fell on the 23rd to give us a white Christmas and like last year we opened our parcels after dinner on Christmas Eve, still making me feeling rather naughty breaking the childhood rule of not opening any presents until Christmas Day. This year, being with Icelandic and South African family the house was swarming with supernatural beings. Jólasveinarnir dropped by at night to leave presents in shoes for good boys and bigger parcels on the 24th and then on the night of the 24th or early morning of the 25th Santa made it to Iceland, flying down into the deep valley, thankfully missing the cold sea water and not slipping too badly on the ice to leave more presents beneath the tree and fill Christmas stockings. Then, K lost his first baby tooth and the tooth fairy left something under his pillow on the night of the 25th.

Where the tooth fairy lives

Today is the 29th and things are calming down. The best toys have been selected (torches and protective eye glasses meant for fireworks), the excitement is diminishing and the house has been spirit and sprite free for a few evenings running now. However, New Year nears and Óli and I have been helping setting up the fireworks display. Of course everyone will set fireworks off and the town will be wreathed in smoke but before midnight, from the sneak preview of the size of the fireworks being laid out and placed into massive barrels, I expect there will be a pretty good show from S and co. Fingers crossed that my fuses don´t fail.

Big bomb, happy boy

It is good to be out of Reykjavík and to see the snow-clad hills all around. I will however, be quite glad to be rid of the supernatural visits for a year! You would too if they were stealing things from the fridge and sniffing around doors, worrying the sheep and licking your pots and pans!

Part of a big happy Icelandic family

A lovely picture .. thanks Sigga.

Áramót - Hogmanay

Hogmanay or New Year´s Eve is a frenzy of explosions and fire in Iceland. The battery begins around the 27th of December and continues until around the end of January. Áramót itself is hard to describe.. explosions all around in built up areas. I was reminded of live TV broadcasts from war zones. A lovely old couple appeared on the TV news to say that they had phoned the emergency services to ask when the explosions would end but the police couldn´t help, so they filled a flask with coffee and hid in the their bathroom which had no windows until around 3am. Þór did the same.. we put his cage in the bath. I enjoyed it though was rather alarmed at the proximity to houses, cars, people. The boys bought a big cake called Katla for me .. so I got to see an eruption of Katla. Thankfully nobody was hurt. The fireworks picture above was taken close to midnight, but we started the evening by going to an bonfire where children were playing with rockets, then went to Óli´s uncle´s house where they set up a last hot air balloon. There was a wild west feeling to the street full of boys of all ages wielding flares and explosive devices and spoking cigars and drinking beer. Icelanders are mad (madly fun) and strangely there are still some of them alive to set the night sky alight and perhaps a few unwary obstacles that don´t run away fast enough.

Hot air balloons

In depth testing of hot air balloon engineering marked Christmas for Óli, Rikki and their Dad. They look beautiful but there is a hair raising element to watching a burning thing float over the houses of Reykjavík.