From our community: Holiday traditions
In the weeks leading up to the holidays, we’re sharing stories from our community, moments of warmth, family, and the personal traditions that shape the season for each of us.
Fríða og Hans
“That people take a moment to breathe a little and be together. That’s the only thing I want for Christmas.”
– Fríða Björk Ingvarsdóttir.
As Christmas approaches, we wanted to get to know the people in our own community and their holiday traditions. Hans and Fríða, a violin maker and a literary scholar, are an intriguing couple living in Garðabær. It was their way of life that captivated us. We felt that their values aligned with our own commitment to creativity, longevity, quality, and caring for those closest to us. It’s good to keep that in mind before Christmas, when everything tends to speed up and shopping and consumption are at their peak.
Hans Jóhannsson has been crafting violins for forty years and has never done anything else.
“I wake up at 6 in the morning becauseI’m so excited to go into the workshop. It’s my passion. My interest began in my grandfather’s workshop when I was a kid, he was a furniture maker, and I’ve always been interested in music. I started studying at twenty, but by then I had long been tinkering with making instruments.”
Hans has a workshop at home where he builds violins for musicians, both in Iceland and abroad. Hans and Fríða lived for a period in Luxembourg, where he had a workshop in a castle from the 7th and 11th centuries.
“Like something out of a Disney film,” he jokes.
Fríða Björk Ingvarsdóttir is a literary scholar.
“I first studied at the University of Iceland, then at a university in Luxembourg, and later at a university in the UK where I finished my Mastersdegree. After we moved back home, I first started running a theatre, together with my friends, called Frú Emilía. Around the same time I began teaching contemporary literature at the University of Iceland. Then came ten years when I was the culture editor at Morgunblaðið [an Icelandic newspaper]. And another ten years serving as the Rector of the Iceland University of the Arts from 2013–2023. I’ve worked on all sorts of things related to arts and culture, written film scripts and produced a film, done quite a bit of translation, including novels, written criticism for various media, and conducted interviews with artists as well as writing other texts on a wide range of art, as well as working in radio and television. Probably a fairly typical career in culture in Iceland. In my free time, I enjoy going out on our motorcycles, and I’mcurrently trying to become a passable drummer.“
What’s your favourite Christmas tradition?
Fríða: “My favorite Christmas tradition is buying a tree that reaches all the way up to the ceiling, no matter how high the ceiling is. It has to be a real tree, preferably Icelandic red spruce, an old-fashioned tree with old-fashioned ornaments, like in Ingmar Bergman’s film. The tree brings that Christmas scent into the house, which usually lasts until it goes out after Twelfth Night, since we diligently water it every day.“
Hans: “My favorite Christmas tradition is the silence before the Christmas Eve meal on the Icelandic radio, when a moment of silence is broadcast to everyone in the country. I find it so profound.”
What is your favorite Christmas memory?
Hans: “I think it’s from the earliest Holidays I can remember. The first memories are probably from around the age of four or five, those are the strongest for me.”
Fríða: “My strongest Christmas memory is probably from when I was at home in our house in Luxembourg, waiting for Hans and our daughter who had gone out to buy a Christmas tree. I was standing in the window on the second floor when they came home, and the tree they had bought was so big that it stretched from the sidewalk all the way up to where I was standing. Naturally, we had to take about a meter and a half off the bottom to get it inside. But it’sa very vivid and beautiful Christmas memory, because our child, seven years old at the time, was so delighted to have been allowed to pick out the biggest tree at the tree lot and bring it home.”
What’s your favorite 66°North product?
“My parka, it’s probably over 20 years old. It’s still in great condition, though I’ve had it slightly repaired. It’s basically like a piece of real estate.”
– Hans Johannsson
Fríða: “I have a favorite garment that I wear a lotoutin the garden. It’s also about twenty years old. It’s a zip-up knitted jacket. I was so pleased with this design because it was the first women’s garment I’d seen that had a phone pocket on the chest, like on men’s clothing. I thought it was so cool that a designer had finally realized that women also work and need to carry their phone with them without hassle. I was really fond of this feature, even though the pocket is far too small for a smartphone today.”
Explore gifts that last
What’s on your Christmas wish list?
Fríða: “I feel like I’ve reached the age where you don’t really need anything for Christmas. There’s nothing on my wish list except bringing joy to my children, grandchildren, and family so that everyone feels well. For people to take a moment to breathe and be together. That’s really the only thing I want for Christmas.”
Hans: “Yes, that’s how it feels at our age, when you already have everything you need. It seems absurd to want anything more. We don’t lack anything, we have everything we need.“
What do you enjoy most about the holiday season?
Hans: “I most enjoy seeing how a child’s face lights up at Christmas, there’s a certain magic in it.”
Fríða: “December can, of course, be all sorts of things, sometimes stressful, because there’s just so much going on in life. Life doesn’t stop just because Christmas is coming! So for me, the highlight of the Christmas season is always Christmas Eve itself, when the rush is over: Waking up early in the darkness, going to the cemetery with my mother and brothers to visit our departed relatives. Then having a slice of hangikjöt [traditional Icelandic smoked lamb] at my mother’s house at lunchtime before I hurry home to start cooking. I spend the whole day in the kitchen with Rás 1 [an Icelandic radio channel] on, making the Christmas meal, while people come and go and maybe accept a little drop of port wine at the kitchen table. Then comes that big moment, when everyone is dressed in their finest at six o’clock. The table is set with a starched white cloth and cloth napkins, crystal glasses, silverware, and candlelight, because we’re celebrating this magnificent holiday for ourselves and our loved ones. There’s no thought of anything except enjoying being a family in the most festive way possible, lifting ourselves out of the everyday routine. I think it’s an absolutely wonderfulday, and I’m always just as grateful when Christmas Night approaches and everyone is content and happy.“
What is an essential part of Christmas for you?
Hans: “For me, it’s when the church bells ring at six o’clock, and there’s the smell of food and everyone is dressed in their finest. That’s a very good moment.”
Fríða: “Baking cookies! There has always been a lot of Christmas cookie baking in this home. They’re baked at the start of Advent and practically finished before Christmas; no one has any appetite for them during the holidays. There have always been joyful baking moments with my mother and the children when they can, and everyone has enjoyed baking these old recipes from my foremothers. They’re very old recipes from Flatey, Ólafsvík, Akranes, and Vesturbær, and we always bake the same ones, the same way, and the boxes stand out for people to nibble on until Christmas proper arrives.”
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