Nordic Christmas Customs

Some of these far-Northern traditions may help you get into the spirit at a time when the weather outside feels more like Spring than Winter.

Also, some of you may want to give socks for Christmas.
The keeper of the ultimate naughty list, GrĂ½la is an Icelandic giantess who comes down from her mountain at Christmastime to eat misbehaving children. Her pet, the Christmas Cat, tags along and eats anyone who didn't get new clothes for Christmas, a tradition that probably makes Icelandic children a lot more grateful for those socks from grandma.
That's right, you little punks. You'll take those socks and smile.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know a grandma who tells the story of how one of her children, dissatisfied with one of his eight Hannukah gifts, said "Why can't every gift be a blast?" That's how her family decided to have one gift. This story sounds like a response to a similar situation.

Valerie

Grim said...

Heh. Every gift can be a blast if there's only one. I like it. :)

Cassandra said...

For years, I've gotten socks (among other gifts) for my adult sons and my daughters in law. The girls get Serious Socks and silly socks (fuzzy, soft ones in bright colors, sometimes with reindeer or other holiday themes).

One year, I thought (to myself, mostly because I have no idea how to think to other people), "I'll bet they're sick and tired of getting those (*&^ socks for Christmas - I get them the same darned thing every year".

And so I didn't anyone socks. Boy howdy, did I hear about it on Christmas morning from my daughters in law (the tone was humorous, but with an underlying edge that let me know they weren't entirely kidding, either).

"NO SOCKS???? Every year we look *forward* to our new socks!"

I've never tried that again :p

On the more frivolous side, I got The Spousal One a wooden crossbow thingy with a target and suction cups. If the Grandpunks get too rowdy, they may find their little behinds covered with toy darts.

Grim said...

Excellent. One of my favorite gifts ever was a catapult just the right size to fling walnuts. :)

MikeD said...

Quite literally, I will take socks for every Christmas and birthday. I swear I never seem to have enough, and I'm always hunting for the darned things (no pun intended... ok, maybe a little). Seriously, I wonder if someone is stealing my socks sometimes.

Cassandra said...

I actually bought myself some socks this year when I got the girls' Christmas socks.

Every year I buy socks for everyone else, and then in January I'm left staring forlornly at my sock drawer and there's not a single matching sock (or none that don't have holes in them or were made sometime during the Cenozoic Era by oppressed little dinosaurs working for starvation wages in prehistoric 3rd world sweatshops) :p