Apparently in Iceland there is a Christmas
tradition of gifting loved ones with books on Christmas eve, then everyone goes
to bed and reads and snacks on chocolate. I freaking love this! Just imagine snuggling in and getting to read
until you fall asleep, instead of late night gift wrapping and stocking
stuffing and getting ready for tommorrowing?
So from what I have read the
tradition goes back to post WW2 when paper was cheap so publishers would flood
the market with books right before Christmas. Now, I am certain that giving
books is not unique to Iceland, the part where you get to spend the rest of the
evening reading them is priceless. No
wonder 1 in 10 Icelanders will publish a book in their lifetime.
Now, I have never been to
Iceland, and this certainly isn’t my tradition, although you never know… It
does remind me of the first year Kat and I were married. I was still in college, and Kat had just
graduated. I don’t remember everything
she bought for me, but I do recall that she purchased me several books, and I
gave her several in return. One night,
over Christmas break, we had gone to bed early, mostly because it was cold and
we had an electric blanket and no central heating. Around midnight I rolled over and discovered
Kat was awake too. I don’t know whose
suggestion it was, but I do know we spent the next couple of hours reading our
books and snacking on leftover lemon cake that Elizabeth Norman had made. That may not be how it is supposed to work,
but I certainly remember that evening and that experience and I wouldn’t trade
it for the world.
So if you are a reading type, and
you should be, and I guess even if you are not a reading type, but you are
looking for a good gift, I am going to put it out there that books are amazing
gifts. I was going to put a plug here
for Fawkes Press books, aka my side hustle, but just figured out the website is
undergoing some technical difficulties. So Yeah! Books! Boo Hiss Technology
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