Christmas Around the World for Kids - Books in Iceland

The twelth* activity in our Christmas Around the World for Kids series is one of my favorites! We're jumping over to Iceland for today's activity because I am in love with how they spend Christmas! 




Iceland is an island country near Greenland:


On Christmas Eve, families in Iceland open gifts, which always include books. After the gifts are all opened, everybody picks out a new book, and reads it! You might snuggle up with hot chocolate and read for hours!

Jolabokaflod is the name for the tradition, and it basically translates to "book flood!" 

The tradition started during World War 2. Most gift items were rationed, but paper was not. Iceland families "flooded" each other with book gifts, and they fell in love with the tradition! In fact, now every home receives a catalogue with new books in it that they can order from in the middle of November!

Christmas Around the World for Kids--Books in Iceland!

Since we're doing this as a build-up to Christmas, we're just talking about the tradition and then letting everyone pick a book to read before getting their "passport stamp." We'll see how Christmas actually goes...I might add an element of this to our regular traditions!



We are learning about Christmas around the world this year with 12 different activities--this was the last* one!  I would LOVE if you joined us!! I will be linking all the activities to THIS PAGE, so you can pick and choose which to do. I'll be putting up a new one each week day when December starts--there are only two left in the series this year! 

* Update/Note: This series got interrupted by some personal things in our lives--we are finishing up with only 10 out of the original 12 that I planned. As next year rolls out, I will update the last two in case anyone finds this next Christmas and wants to use it! I do have the topics listed on this page if you want to see what I was going to do!  ðŸ’–


And if you're looking for more homeschool unit studies, be sure to check out our growing collection here!



Happy Educating,
Carla & the kids who don't sit still!

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