Christmas trees are an important part of Christmas in our day and generally they are given a central place in people´s living rooms. A great part of the Christmas celebrations take place around the Christmas tree. The Christmas gifts are usually kept under the tree and it is around the tree that families gather to open their presents. 

On the first Advent Sunday, which falls on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, Icelanders traditionally put up so called Advent wreaths. The Advent wreaths traditionally are circular and are decorated with four candles which are lit, one by one, the last four Sundays before Christmas. The Advent wreaths are often ornately decorated with evergreen branches or the like. 

Christmas lights were for the longest time the only decorations people could afford for Christmas. At that time people used candles, but most people could not afford to use candles except at festive moments and therefore used them at Christmas. Still today it is the masses of light that are a characteristic of Christmas. Nowadays it is not only candlelight but also electric light in all shapes and sizes. Before the coming of electricity Icelanders had to endure a darkness of a scale the modern man finds difficult to conceive of.  

In the advent of Christmas all types of Christmas ornaments and lights are seen everywhere. People decorate their homes and put colourful garlands of lights in their windows. Amply decorated shop windows fill up with Christmas merchandise and there are lights everywhere. 

Even though Catholicism was abolished in Iceland in the year 1550 the Mass of the Icelandic saint Thorlákur is still celebrated on his Mass day of December 23rd each year. Today, it is mainly in connection with the preparation of Christmas that people remember the Mass of St Thorlákur (or St Thorlákur´s Day) and for many it is a tradition to decorate the Christmas tree on that day or do the last of their Christmas shopping. 

In the minds of many Icelanders, leaf bread is one of the specialities of the Icelandic Christmas. The oldest available source regarding leaf bread in Iceland stems from the earlier part of the 18th Century where the leaf bread is described as the sweetmeat of the Icelanders. It is believed that originally the leaf bread was mostly on the table of those better off and that it did not enter the table of the general public until the 19th Century.

The Cristmas Season has traditionally been centred around food, a celebration where people eat a lot of good food and meat has been a mainstay of people´s diets during this season here in Iceland. During the last years the development has been that it is not just during Christmas itself that people enjoy good food but rather the eating fest stretches to include the period of the Advent. 

On the night preceding December 12th it is customary for Icelandic children to put their shoe in the window as that night the first Yule „Stekkjarstaur“  or Sheep-Cote Clod comes to town. The shoe stays on the window sill until Christmas and the children hope that the Yule lads, who one by one come into town from the mountains those nights leading up to Christmas, will leave a little something for them in the shoe. 

As is mentioned in the chapters on the Yule Cat and on Christmas Presents it was customary in the old rural society that employers gave the employees in their home a new garment and sheepskin shoes for Christmas. This was done to reward the people for good work as the tasks that had to be accomplished before Christmas were numerous and therefore the weeks leading up to Christmas were characterized by a rigorous workload. 

Today, Christmas and Christmas presents are inextricably linked and in the minds of many people the presents are one of the most important features of the celebrations. In the month of December shops and shopping centres are filled with people buying one present after the other and the media are full of advertisements for the perfect Christmas gifts. The flood of Christmas presents seems to get larger and larger each year and shop owners certainly need not complain about anything during this time of year. 

In Iceland Christmas starts at six pm on Christmas Eve, December 24 and the festivities last until the Thirteenth Day (Twelfth Night), which falls on January 6. In the high north, Christmas is linked to an ancient history related to the winter solstice. It is not known with any certainty when „Christmas“ or Yule, was celebrated in heathendom but it is thought likely that the celebration took place on a full moon during the time of year when the day is shortest.