New Year’s Eve
We spent the last day of the year 2011 in pretty standard fashion. We began by attending The Annual Dinner With Finnur’s Family (and a couple of their friends) at the lovely adobe of Finnur’s uncle and his wife. After eating far too much, and playing with fireworks, we hightailed it to Hrefna’s family where we hiked up to the hill shortly before midnight (also an annual tradition) and attempted to see the crazy amount of fireworks being fired up at the new year.
Finnur's family and friends at the annual family new year's eve dinner.
Visitors from Far Away
The holiday season is when Icelanders living abroad tend to come and visit the motherland. We know from experience that these visits ‘home’ are busy busy busy, but were pleasantly surprised to receive two visits from busy-bees from far away. First up were our friends Siggi and Jennifer from California, and the day after my step-sister Helga and her son Ísarr dropped by.
Thursday 29 December 2011
Jesigga, Anna og Jóhanna.
A Whole-Day Birthday Celebration
These days it seems to be the ‘norm’ to host multiple birthday parties for one kid. In particular there tends to be one party for the classmates and another for the family and friends. Since we happen to have large families on both sides, we decided to split the partying up into three parts: 1) Finnur’s family at Finnur’s parents’ place on Christmas Day, 2) all the girl’s in Anna’s class at the ice-skating rink, and 3) Hrefna’s family and our friends. In a fit of insanity I organized 2) and 3) to be on the same day, but thankfully it all worked out in the end.
The girls singing Happy Birthday for Anna at the ice-rink.
While the kids are out…
… the adults go out to play! Yes, both kids got swept away on sleepovers earlier today. Anna headed to her classmate’s before lunch and will not be returning until tomorrow. So that Bjarki wouldn’t be bored to tears in the meantime, Finnur’s parents agreed to take him on for the same amount of time.Read more
More Family Feasting
As usual, the week between Christmas and the new year is full of fun feasts. On the Second day of Christmas, Arnar and Magnea invited the family over for delicious food and good company. Here are some pics. 🙂
Mmmm… lovely lovely foooood! 🙂
Anna Sólrún turns 8 years old/Christmas Day
Anna Sólrún is now EIGHT years old!! How time flies. 🙂 As is customary, we spent the day with Finnur’s family. We arrived around 14:30, and began by eating a chocolate cake in Anna’s honor. She then got to open some presents (Icelanders open the Christmas presents on Christmas Eve) much to her enjoyment. 🙂
After the ‘birthday-part’ of the day was over, the adults sat down to play whist while the kids watched some tv. After we’d played 12 rounds, it was time for Christmas Dinner, after which the whist-trophy was awarded to the top scorer, and some playing cards were given to the lowest scorer.
All in all it was a lovely Christmas Day, and to make the day even more lovely we had snowfall pretty much the whole day, making the view extra Christmassy. 🙂
Here are some photos from the day.
The standard-issue chocolate cake, with too many colorful smarties to be readable. It should say "Anna 8" 🙂
The (half) happy family. 🙂
Christmas!
Begin info dump: Icelanders celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. The celebrations begin at 6pm with a fancy meal, followed by the all-important opening of presents. End info dump.
Christmas (Eve)/Yule/Solstice arrived in a flurry of snow. The trickiest part of the day is keeping the kids sane, because, duh, PRESENTS!! We somehow managed to convince them to go outside, just as a blizzard descended, and
The kids out in the backyard as snow is beginning to fall.
Merry Christmas! Gleðileg jól! Happy Solstice! Gleðilega sólstöðuhátíð!
Merry Christmas! Gleðileg jól! Happy Solstice! Gleðilega sólstöðuhátíð! 🙂 🙂 🙂 All in all – HAPPY HOLIDAYS! 🙂Read more
Christmas Tree!
We spent Christmas 2010 in England, and therefore never bothered to buy a Christmas/Yule-tide/Solstice tree last year. This year we were planning to cut down a tree in our own back-yard, but when the time came it was already dark out, the tree wasn’t that pretty, and we were feeling lazy. End-result: Finnur drove to the nearest tree-depot and bough a tree.
It is customary in Iceland to put the Christmas tree up on the evening before Christmas Eve, so that’s what we did. As it happened, Bjarni and mom were delivering presents at the same time, so we got them to help out.
Anna and Bjarki walking aroud the decorated Christmas tree stand…
Ný Nökkva -og Jóhönnudóttir! :)
On 16 December 2011, my brother Nökkvi and his spouse Jóhanna welcomed their second child! She was in a hurry to get here, and measured 53 cm (20.9 inches) long and weighed 4 kg (16 ‘merkur’, 8.8 lbs) on arrival. All were healthy and happy and they went home later that day. Since we wereRead more