Every country around the world has its own Christmas tradition.
In the UK, something as simple as eating mince pies has become an entrenched habit each year.
In Europe, Austria has the bad Santa, while in Germany Pickle in the Tree is all the rage, and Belfana the Witch prevails in Italy.
There is, however, an altogether more wholesome and sweet tradition found in Europe, in the Nordic island nation of Iceland.
There, each Christmas Eve, people engage in something called Jolabokaflod, a unique and cherished tradition where people meet with friends and family and exchange books.
The joy of the tradition, according to Icelanders, is not entirely the act of giving or receiving a book, but the process of reading the new book along with other people.
Jolabokaflod roughly translates to “Christmas book flood” in English.
It began during World War 2, when paper was one of the few things not rationed in Iceland.
With little in the way of gifts to give at Christmas, books were plentiful.
While Iceland already had a long tradition line of literature spanning back to the 10th century, Jolabokaflod has cemented the country as a nation of book lovers.
According to one 2013 study, carried out by Bifröst University, 50 percent of Icelanders read more than eight books a year and 93 percent read at least one.
“The culture of giving books as presents is very deeply rooted in how families perceive Christmas as a holiday,” Kristjan B. Jonasson, president of the Iceland Publishers Association, told NPR.
“Normally, we give the presents on the night of the 24th and people spend the night reading. In many ways, it’s the backbone of the publishing sector here in Iceland.”
Since 1944, the Icelandic book trade has sent out a book bulletin to each household around the same time as the Reykjavik Book Fair.
Icelanders all over the country use this catalogue to order books to give to their friends and family on December 24, the main gift-giving day in Iceland.
It’s the reason why books fly off the shelves between September and early November, and while Iceland has a population of less than 400,000 people, it publishes more books per capita than any other country in the world.
After all the presents are opened on the night before Christmas, everyone grabs a cup of hot chocolate and settles down to spend the rest of the evening reading their books.
