RAR #218: Jolabokaflod: How to Have a Christmas Book Flood

Sarah Mackenzie (00:00): What if I told you there is an Icelandic Christmas tradition that means you would get to spend an entire day or an entire evening reading books and sipping hot cocoa, and that's what you're supposed to be doing? Oh, friends, do I have a treat for you? (00:19): This is the Read-Aloud Revival, the show that helps your kids fall in love with books and helps you fall in love with homeschooling. I'm Sarah Mackenzie, and in this episode, we're talking about how to Jolabokaflod. You do not want to miss this. (00:35): Okay, first things first. How on earth do we actually pronounce this word? There are a lot of very opinionated people online, adamant that the word is pronounced one way or another. But yala boca flod seems to be the consensus, so I'm going to use that here. If you happen to speak Icelandic fluently, would you write in and tell me if I'm pronouncing it correctly or not? Because I would love that. For here and now on this episode, I'm going to say Jolabokaflod. (01:20): What is it, and why on earth are we talking about it here on the Read-Aloud Revival? Jolabokaflod can be translated into Yule book flood or Christmas book flood. This is an Icelandic Christmas tradition where you gift members of your family with new books, and then you drink hot cocoa, and spend the whole of Christmas Eve reading those books. So basically it's a Christmas evening set aside for reading and chocolate. (01:50): If I didn't get your attention before, I've got it now. In Iceland, this tradition originated during World War II when foreign merchandise was restricted, and paper was just about the only thing that wasn't rationed in Iceland. So then publishing houses flooded the market with new books during the last few weeks of the year. It was a Yule book flood, or a Christmas book flood, right? (02:14): According to NPR, even today, a book bulletin is actually delivered to every Icelandic home in mid-November, listing new titles and books all in preparation for Jolabokaflod. Because that's when all these books are flooding the market. It's pretty fabulous, right? (02:32): While I was preparing this episode, I also came across some really interesting information. I didn't know this. Iceland is a very bookish country. One recent study from 2019 showed that an average Icelander reads 27 books per year. On average, they read 27 books a year. In America, our average is four books per year. And of course that's an average, so we know that that means a few people read a lot more than four books per year, and there are quite a lot of people who don't read at all, right? But the average in Iceland is 27 bucks a year. Plus, get this, one in 10 Icelanders go on to publish a book of their own. That's kind of amazing. I mean, of course a bookish tradition like Jolabokaflod would come out of such readerly magic. Oh my goodness. (03:20): All right, so let's talk about what you really want to know. How can we adopt the tradition of Jolabokaflod with your own family? I am here for this conversation. Now, as far as I can tell, keeping Jolabokaflod simple is really the heart of it. I know I feel like so much about Christmas feels busy. It's just a lot of doing, right? And Jolabokaflod is an invitation for us to do less, to connect more, connect with each other, connect through books. So I want to invite you as I'm talking about this, and as you hear some others talk about what Jolabokaflod looks like in their homes. I want to invite you to keep this super simple and avoid any temptation that you might have to complicate it, or to make it anything else than the very, very simple invitation of books, and chocolate, and time set aside. (04:13): Let me invite you to settle on your Jolabokaflod for this year in two very simple steps. The first is to pick a date. Now, I mentioned that the Icelandic tradition is to do this on Christmas Eve. And when I first heard about this tradition, I was kind of bummed actually, because I thought, well, we already have Christmas Eve traditions. We're going to church, we're visiting grandparents, we open new pajamas. We already sort of do our Christmas Eve things. (04:41): So it's helpful to remember that you can do Jolabokaflod anytime that works for your family. Just pick a different day. You can do it anytime you want. You could do it on New Year's Eve. You could do it on the Feast of the Epiphany, which is January 6th. You could do it on the winter solstice on December 21st, first day of winter. You can literally do what I do, and just look at your calendar for a day or an evening that doesn't have anything already planned, and then that's your day for Jolabokaflod. Just safeguard it. Don't let anything else in there. It is set aside for Jolabokaflod. (05:13): Actually, one of our premium members, Megan, told us that she doesn't even do Jolabokaflod on one day at all, but more of over the whole month. Megan puts books underneath the Christmas tree to be looked at over the whole month. It's a feast of Christmas books, and the kids are invited to read under the twinkling lights of the tree. (05:35): I've also heard of people wrapping up their Christmas books, like their Christmas picture books, so that the kids can unwrap one book a day all through Advent to be read aloud. Yeah, I love the idea of this, and when I see pictures of it, I always think, oh, I love that. But I'm also not the kind of person who has the stamina to wrap 24 books. I've never done it, so your mileage may vary. The bottom line here is that you can make this work for you. Just look at your calendar, and pick a date that works best for your family. And then save it that day or that evening, that's for Jolabokaflod. (06:13): Now, once you've got a date, you can do step two, which is really just to decide what Jolabokaflod is going to look like for you. And I really want to reiterate that we should keep this simple. Don't overthink it. Don't make it complicated. The simplicity of books, plus chocolate, plus time, that's what Jolabokaflod offers us. So we don't need to ruin it by making it really complicated, making it another thing on our to-do list, making it something we have to plan for. (06:39): A few RAR Premium members recently told me what their Jolabokaflod celebrations look like, so listen into those. Tara (06:47): I set out all the books on our table, and on our benches, and on our window sills, and everywhere. And I put everything facing out, and I put around chocolates, and clementines, and things like that. And then the kids go around and choose what they want to read. And then everyone curls up and usually has tea, or hot chocolate, or mulled cider, something cozy, and there are always snacks around. Kelly (07:14): What we like to do to celebrate is just spend an entire day reading. We just like to have a lot of snacks. We take pressure off of chores, and cleaning, and doing any kind of work. We have fires in the fireplace. We have lots of snacks like popcorn, and charcuterie boards. Sometimes we've bought new books for that day, and other times we just read books that we already have in the house. Sarah Mackenzie (07:45): Another member told us that she gets Trader Joe's variety pack of hot chocolate, and she lights a bunch of candles. She buys a used book for each of her kids, like a special book for each of them. And then on this night when she's got the variety hot chocolate pack and the candles, she lays out all the books in the living room. And when the kids come out from the hall, there is a flood of books in the living room. And they sit together, and read for the evening, sampling all the different hot chocolate flavors. (08:18): The common themes here are that books are read, treats are shared, and there is time set aside. Books, treats, time set aside. Those are the three ingredients you need. Whether you want those books to be new gifts, or just books you already have on your shelf, books that people maybe are already reading, that's completely up to you. Whether you want your treats to be a mug of hot cocoa and a candy cane, or you want something a little more involved, or you want something less involved, that's up to you. Just set aside time, and then figure out what you're going to read, and what you're going to offer as a treat. (08:56): Do this as a whole family, and it will feel like a gift. That you are giving each member of your family the gift of time set aside, and treats, and books to, guilt-free, enjoy some reading time to keep this simple. Because you already have a lot on your to-do list right now, so you don't need to make this another to-do. You can sink into it like a gift. (09:18): And actually, to that end, there is one other piece that I think we might want to consider. And that is to simplify dinner on whatever day you're planning to do your Jolabokaflod on. So often as the merrymakers in our families, we work ourselves to death making warm and cozy memories for our families, right? It's really easy to do that in a way where we don't get to get in on the joy of that tradition ourselves, because we're working so hard to make it cozy for everyone else. Like I'm so busy picking out books and making treats for Jolabokaflod, and maybe I'm wrapping gifts at Christmas. And I'm planning to go drive around to look at Christmas lights, or planning to go to some festival of trees, or to go Christmas caroling, or whatever it is that you do at Christmas time. There's so much doing, and we are the merrymakers, and so we are sometimes so wrapped up in that doing, we don't really get to sink into the leisurely joy of all of it. So let Jolabokaflod be a tradition that you get to sink into that joy for. (10:17): At my house, I'm going to be ordering in pizza on Jolabokaflod night. Nobody has got to make dinner. We're going to use paper plates. No one has got to wash dishes. We're just going to keep everything super simple. You could also do this, I mean, you could do this by making sandwiches for dinner on that night. You could do it by just making twice of the amount of dinner the night before, so that you can do leftover night. Or make soup that you can make in the morning, so it's just totally ready and simmering in the crock pot or the on the stove. Whatever it is, keep it simple. Set it aside so that you... This is not just for your kids, this is not just for your family, this is for you as well. That way you can enjoy the time, and the books, and the chocolate too. (10:58): Speaking of holiday slowness, I'm taking a little Christmas break from the podcast. Our next new episode is going to drop in the new year. In the meantime, I'm going to be Christmas schooling with RAR Premium members here at Read-Aloud Revival. (11:14): If you haven't heard yet, Christmas School is a complete guide to celebrating the season with joy, and wonder, and history, and geography. What? Yeah, it's true actually. We have created a complete month of integrated learning for your kids of all ages, from your preschoolers through your high schoolers, that centered around some of the best Christmas books we know. And it can be used in your homeschool, for your homeschool, for December, with all of those ages. All you need to do is add math, or you can skip math if you want. I promise you will not find coal in your stocking if you skip math for a little bit around Christmas. (11:53): So you can join us as we explore literature, and history, culture, art, nature, and so much more every week during Christmas School. We've included all the subjects in a very relaxed way, that we hope gives your whole family a spacious way to focus on the real reason we celebrate Christmas in the first place. Christmas School is your open and go solution to focusing on the best parts of the season, and helping your family feel closer, and connect, and create memories, and be fully ready to honor the birth of the baby king. (12:27): So join us for Christmas school at RAR Premium by going to rarpremium.com. Or you can just text my name Sarah, S-A-R-A-H, to the number 33777, and I'll send you a direct link if you text Sarah to 33777. I'll send you a direct link to where you can get your Christmas School Guide right away. (12:51): Thank you so much to the RAR Premium members who left messages for this episode of the show. Hey, if you're an RAR Premium member and you'd like to be featured on an upcoming episode, or you'd like to share your story for me to tell on an upcoming episode, keep an eye on the forum, because that's where I'm posting requests to hear your stories that fit with upcoming episode topics. This episode was written and narrated by me, Sarah Mackenzie, and produced by the team at Yellow House Media. (13:21): And then, I'll be back in the new year right here on the show with brand new episodes. I hope you carve out a small space for a cozy Jolabokaflod tradition. I hope you join us for Christmas School. And most of all, I hope you are filled with comfort and joy this Christmas season. People, look east. The time is near. Merry Christmas.