30/12/2023
On Christmas Eve Icelanders gift the people they love a book, and then snuggle in for the night, before an open fire, to drink hot chocolate and read. They call this Jólabókaflóð – the Christmas Book Flood. The tradition dates from WW2, when paper was one of the few things not rationed. There are other wild Icelandic traditions involving dancing around the rim of volcanoes, eating loaves made from sour rams’ testicles and drone photography of ice and lava flow, but the one we want to share is called Skógurást.
On New Year’s Eve you plant a seedling for your loved ones, and they plant one for you. Thirty years later you walk barefoot through the forest you’ve made together, hand in hand in hand with Freya.
The tree you plant can be birch, spruce, pine – and now, as the glaciers melt and the land is warm, even oak, ash and elm are thriving. Skógurást means, literally, forest love. It comes with elvish blessing. The tradition dates from December 2023, when the world moved towards net zero and Icelanders invited the world to plant trees together at Tumastaðir.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, lovely friends.
https://festivalsforest.eu/donate
PS - Some people - who absolutely have to take aeroplanes because there is no more sustainable way to travel - even sit down on 31st December and count all the flights they’ve taken that year and plant a tree for each journey, dedicating those trees to their lovers, or to their favourite arts festival. These people are called “angels” because they try to fly kindly, or "archangels" if they find a way not to fly at all next year, and they too are most welcome in the forest.
