Let’s End Our Trips in Iceland!

Thursday, December 24, 2015 

            Our last trip for this Advent season is go to Iceland.  I hope that you have enjoyed our travels, learning about how other girls and boys celebrate Christmas with their families.  Christmas is known as “Yule” in Iceland.  In its early history, it was a celebration around the shortest day of the year, but when the Romans came, they began to honor the birth of Jesus.  There are many holiday traditions in Iceland, and I would like to share some of them with you.

            The preparations for Christmas are very important in Iceland.  Some people don’t eat certain meals or food, especially, meat during the thirteen days before Christmas.  Some also do as you have done by reading Advent devotionals and preparing their hearts to receive God’s gift of his son.  Part of the preparation for the holidays is to clean one’s home very well – including the children’s rooms.

            Since 1890 when Christmas cards first arrived in Iceland, the people there have loved to send them.  Of course, now they also send emails or texts to their friends and relatives.  However, traditional holiday cards are still very popular.  Giving gifts is also very important.  However, this did not begin until about 1850.  They give food to poor, needy families, and their bosses at work give everyone a new pair of sheepskin shoes and a piece of clothing, often a sweater, for all the hard work they have done all year.  Because Jesus is considered to be the Light of the World, it is also traditional for everyone in the family, including the children, to receive a candle.  The little ones in this country consider this to be a great present.

            Starting on December 12^th and lasting up until December 24^th, the children put their shoes in the window.  The traditional Yule Lads put a gift in their shoes every night until Christmas.  If they have been good, they receive candy or a small toy; however, if they have not been particularly well-behaved, they may receive a note encouraging them to do better or, worse yet, a rotten potato!  There a thirteen Yule Lads, or Yule Trolls, as they are sometimes called.  In English, some of them are called Bowl Licker, Sausage Snatcher, and Candle Beggar.  (Remember how important candles are to everyone, especially children, in Iceland.)  The favorite gifts are a book and a piece of chocolate!  Occasionally, sometimes today Santa Claus is given credit for leaving the gifts. 

Let’s wish all the children in Iceland a Merry Christmas!!!  They love to send greetings, so I am sure they will send you one in return. 

What is Christmas All About?

Hope, Peace, Love, and Joy

            At its basic essence, Christmas is all about the Hope, Peace, Love, and Joy that Jesus brings us.  Tradition has it that the Israelites had Hope that a Messiah would come to set them free.  Frequently, that Hope was to be freed from foreign rule.  However, we are on the other side of the Messiah’s arrival.  Yes, it is nice, nice indeed, to be freed from foreign oppression.  But, there is a deeper Hope; a Hope within our hearts that transcends earthly concerns and reaches for the eternal.  A baby began the process of sending that Hope to us.

            With Hope comes Peace for we believe that life will be better now that Jesus is a part of our lives.  When peace focuses on the eternal, it is much easier to face life and death.  The twelve-year-old Jesus brought this to us when he was at ease being where he was supposed to be with the teachers in the Temple.

            We can’t help but Love the one brings us Hope and Peace.  In arguably the greatest love chapter in the Bible, I Corinthians 13, we learn that we can have or be anything or everything else on the earth, but without Love we are not a gift to the world or to others.  Jesus taught and brought Hope, Peace, and Love to us during his three year teaching, preaching, and healing sojourn.  And he still brings these things through his example in the gospels as well as in the witness of our hearts.  May we be grateful for not only his example, but also for the empowerment he gives us to live in Hope, Peace, and Love.

            Hope – Peace – Love – and Joy: That is what the risen savior gives to us.  First, though, he came as a baby bringing us Hope, grew into a young boy of knowledge and understanding, became a man who gave us our example and guidance on how to live through him and with one another.  Finally, he rose again so that we might live in Hope, Peace, Love, and JOY!  These are our gifts from God and to one another during Christmas and throughout all eternity. 

MERRY, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Lynn