Christmas Book Flood: A Reflection

This will be my family’s 7th year of enjoying one of our favorite bookish Christmas traditions: the Icelandic Christmas Book Flood, or Jólabókaflóðið (“Jolabokaflod”). We have no Icelandic heritage, just a shared love of books (and chocolate!).

As I wrote in 2018, this is a lovely, simple tradition that my family is able to keep in the midst of the hustle and bustle this time of year: I give my children each a book along with some chocolate on Christmas Eve. They sleep under the tree and are allowed to stay up as late as they want with their new books and treats. No one has to brush their teeth.

My guidelines for my Christmas Book Flood gifts are simple:

• The books should be compulsively readable (i.e. genre fiction; this is not the time for an encyclopedic reference work).
• Bonus if I can work off of a theme (because it limits the decisions I have to make).
• Books should be as broadly applicable as possible; I expect them to be shared by other family members over Christmas break.
• The chocolate must be chocolate I myself would enjoy eating. Ahem.
• I order my books the first week of December and wrap them right away. Otherwise, it’s easy to forget!

Themes for the Christmas Book Flood/ Jolabokaflod

I’m still working out this year’s theme (and wouldn’t post it here anyway because my teenagers read my posts now!), but previous years’ themes included:

• 1st book in a Christian fantasy series (Wilderking book 1, Wingfeather book 1, 100 Cupboards book 1)
• Agatha Christie mysteries
• graphic novels (including Cardboard and Tommysaurus Rex for my boys)
• “watery” good reads (Call It Courage, Swallows and Amazons, Island of the Blue Dolphins)
• “fun” reads/books I thought they’d enjoy—not very “thematic” but it worked in my mind. (The Pushcart War, Watership Down, Pocket Full of Murder)
• adventure reads (Peak, MindWar, and Daughter of Time)

I’ve gotten many of my book ideas from my fellow reviewers here at Redeemed Reader!

Other possible Christmas Book Flood/ Jolabokaflod themes which work well for a wide audience range:

• British authors (A. A. Milne, Kenneth Grahame, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, Lewis Carroll, J. K. Rowling, … so many!)
• “Old” books (i.e. from the 1800s or early 1900s)
• wintry stories (such as Twelve Kinds of Ice or Astrid the Unstoppable)
• animal stories (everything from classics such as Charlotte’s Web to newer books like Skunk and Badger)
• mysteries
• sports stories
• historical fiction
• classic fantasy or sci-fi
• fairy tale and folk tale retellings (picture books all the way to novel-length retellings such as Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy)
• literary/new fairy tales (original fairy tale stories, like The Light Princess or Where the Mountain Meets the Moon)
• narrative nonfiction (books like Bomb and Fallout are definitely “compulsively readable”)
• funny stories
• books with numbers or math in their titles (sometimes the quirkiest themes are the most fun! What about The 14 Fibs of Gregory K or The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street or One Dog and His Boy or …)
• books with colors in their titles (such as The Time of Green Magic, The Green Ember, Blue Birds, Black Bird Blue Road, Island of the Blue Dolphins, …)
• books with one word titles, not including subtitles (Sweep or the aforementioned Bomb or Fallout)
• travel or journey stories (animals or people)

Have you enjoyed this tradition in your home? What other bookish themes can you think of?