Time for a Book Flood by Margie Senechal

In the spring of 1969, my mom, my sister, and I joined my dad in Keflavik, Iceland, where he’d been stationed. He’d gone on ahead of us to find us a place to live because housing on base was scarce.

We began our stay in Iceland off-base living above an Icelandic family of five, who had three kids all around my sister’s and my ages. I remember playing in the snow under streetlights and my sister getting hit in the eye with a rock disguised as snowball by some neighbor kid.

Over the years, I’ve talked to other military kids who were also stationed abroad and collectively, one of the best experiences is the opportunity to celebrate holidays and traditions of both countries.

Christmas in Iceland was like a winter dream come true. I mean, we were actually living in place that was a close replica of the North Pole and they had 13 Santas. Or what they call Yule Lads. We called them Icelandic Santas.

And while counting down to Christmas via visits from the Yule Lads was wonderful—I also love their Jolabokaflod tradition. If you’re a reader who follows other writers or readers, I’m sure you’ve heard of it in recent years. Where a gift of a book is opened on Christmas Eve to read and enjoy a piece of chocolate with.

I received two books while I was there. And probably every Christmas since, although once we left Iceland, the book was just added to the pile under the tree to be opened upon Christmas Day.

The first book I received was The Snow Queen and I’d be lying if I said I’d never considered she might kidnap me from the bus stop on some very dark morning. And that I actually hoped it could happen.

I often wonder if Iceland’s love of books has something to do with the dark and cold nights of winter. I remember walking to the bus stop in pitch black darkness, only able to see the reflective lining of my fellow students as I headed to the wooden hut we huddled in to brace us from the frigid wind. For me, books and comic books provided evening entertainment as the wind whirled outside all around us.

My second book was Children of Many Lands, which was somewhat fitting since we were living around the world from where my story began in the Pacific NW. The Snow Queen is held together by black electric tape and is in an art style that has basically faded away as a byproduct of the sixties. The books made it back to the states and through a dozen+ states as we drove from New Jersey to Washington state. And they’ve remained with me since.

I read them to my youngest sister who was born in Iceland when I was eight. I read them to kids I babysat through school, I read them to my children and other people’s children that that passed through my home daycare.

For this year’s Christmas reading, I recommend Shannon Stacey’s Stranded in a Small Town Christmas, Jenn McKinley’s It Happened One Christmas Eve, Nan Reinhardt’s The Fireman’s Christmas Wish, and finally, especially, Amy E Reichert’s Once Upon a December.

Oh, the magic of words. And the magic of Christmas.

Margie Senechal lives in the Pacific Northwest where she loves being just a ninety-minute drive from the coast. She’s currently wrapping up her ninth novel which she hopes will be the one to finally see publication—one way or another. And she’s got another three, four, or a dozen in various stages of development so she’s never quite bored. She blogs every third Friday at Word Wranglers and you can find her on Facebook with just her name.