Jólabókaflóðið: an Icelandic Christmas Tradition

The Icelandic Christmas tradition, Jólabókaflóðið, translates as “Christmas Book Flood.” Have you heard of it? Earlier this year, I did. The custom is to gift your household family members each a book for Christmas. The wrapped packages are opened at the end of the night on Christmas Eve. Everyone cozies up with hot cocoa or another preferred hot drink and reads their new gifts. (Thinking of “hygge,” I imagine there are lit scented candles involved too.)

It is such a nationwide tradition that in the autumn each year, the Iceland Publishers Association delivers a book catalog for free to every household in the country on the occasion of the Reykjavík Book Fair.

Jólabókaflóðið is a relatively new tradition. Its roots began during World War II and the necessity of war rationing. Paper and paper goods, unlike other commodities, were easier to access so books were items that people could buy and gift. When researching for this blog post, I learned that Icelanders rank high in the number of books read per person and the country ranks 1st in the world in the number of bookstores per capita.

If you want to learn more about the love of reading in Iceland, I encourage you to read The Icelanders and Their Big Love of Books from the Guide to Iceland website.

Do you have plans to visit Iceland? Are you an armchair traveler who likes to read about far-away places? In 2022, the New York Times published an Icelandic author’s essay on Reykjavík’s bookstore scene,Read Your Way Through Reykjavík.

(Did you know you can access the New York Times for free with your Mercer County Library System card? Access the New York Times online via mcl.org.)

Jólabókaflóðið sounds like a book lover’s dream holiday tradition, doesn’t it? Being a librarian, you would guess correctly that I love books and reading. Our family tradition is to give 3 gifts (in honor of the 3 visiting wise men who came to see baby Jesus in the manger): something for play, something to wear and something to read. So, this “Christmas Book Flood” tradition of receiving new books and curling up to enjoy them on the eve of Christmas would be a natural fit for us.

How about your family? Perhaps you’d like to incorporate a new tradition into your holiday plans.

(By the way. if you’re wondering how to pronounce jólabókaflóð, the phonetic pronunciation is yo-la-bok-a-flot, or hear it pronounced.)

Below are a few suggested books with cozy stories to buy - or borrow with your library card.

For adults:

For teens:

For children:

Family Read-Alouds:

- by Kim Luke, Hightstown Branch

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