From the traditions of Christmas across the North to the candlelit intimacy of Danish Jul, the strange world of the Yule Cat and Yule Goat, and Iceland’s great Christmas Eve celebration of books, four All Things Nordic books offer four different journeys into the Nordic festive season.
Christmas in the Nordic Countries: a journey across the North
Christmas changes as you travel across the Nordic world. Hilda Lainen’s Christmas in the Nordic Countries follows those changes across Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Faroe Islands, Greenland, Åland and the wider North, exploring the customs, food, stories, music and folklore that have grown around the darkest weeks of the year. This is a Christmas of candles and decorated trees, but also of nisser and tomtar, Icelandic Yule Lads, the Finnish Joulupukki, Saint Lucia, old beliefs and traditions whose origins reach much further back than the modern festive season. The book looks beyond the familiar international image of a cosy Nordic Christmas to explore how different histories and local traditions have created celebrations that are closely related but never quite identical. For travellers, Nordic enthusiasts and readers who simply want to understand why Christmas occupies such a distinctive place in Northern culture, it is an invitation to travel across the region without leaving the fireside. Christmas in the Nordic Countries is also available in hardcover.
Christmas in Denmark: Jul, hygge and the warmth of gathering
With Christmas in Denmark, Hilda Lainen narrows the journey to a single country and takes a closer look at one of Scandinavia’s richest festive traditions. Danish Christmas is built gradually through Advent before reaching the family celebration of Christmas Eve: candles glowing against the winter darkness, woven hearts and Danish flags on the tree, æbleskiver and seasonal sweets, Christmas markets, music, films and the mischievous nisser that have survived their transformation from rural household spirits into much-loved figures of modern Jul. The book explores traditions, food, decorations, folklore and the atmosphere surrounding the Danish festive season, while also considering the history behind customs that can appear timeless. Copenhagen at Christmas may provide some of the most recognisable images of Danish Jul, but the celebration ultimately belongs around the table and inside the home. Together, Christmas in Denmark and Christmas in the Nordic Countries work as companion volumes: one provides the broad Nordic panorama; the other slows down and enters more deeply into a single national Christmas culture. Christmas in Denmark is also available in hardcover.
The Yule Cat and the Yule Goat: Christmas gets a little stranger
Not every creature of Nordic Christmas arrives with a sleigh and a sack of presents. The North has preserved a much older and considerably stranger population of seasonal beings, and the Yule Cat and Yule Goat belong among its most memorable inhabitants. The ATN Christmas story The Night The Yule Cat Saved The Yule Goat devoted to these two extraordinary figures enters the territory where folklore, winter darkness and storytelling meet. Iceland’s enormous Jólakötturinn prowls through Christmas tradition with distinctly unsettling intentions, while the Yule Goat has travelled through centuries of Scandinavian custom, changing roles and meanings along the way. Bringing them together creates a Christmas journey far removed from the standard festive tale: playful, mysterious, occasionally dark and unmistakably Nordic. It is a book for readers who like their Christmas traditions with a little folklore still attached — and a reminder that the old Northern winter imagination was populated by creatures far stranger than the modern Santa Claus.
Jólabókaflóð 2026: a book made for Christmas Eve
There could hardly be a more appropriate Nordic Christmas present than a book inspired by Iceland’s Jólabókaflóð — the celebrated “Christmas book flood” that makes books and Christmas Eve natural companions. Jólabókaflóð 2026: The All Things Nordic Almanac is the ATN annual reader, bringing together stories, cultural essays, literary extracts, traditions, photography and journeys from across the Nordic world. Readers can encounter Faroese design, enter the world of Hrafnkell’s Saga, discover sila and the Arctic world, travel through festive Sweden, explore Indigenous food traditions in Sápmi, learn about Jutland’s literary culture and meet Finland’s extraordinary national interpretation of baseball, pesäpallo. The collection moves freely between countries, disciplines and voices, making the almanac both a journey through the North and an introduction to the wider ATN library. And, appropriately for a book bearing the name Jólabókaflóð, it is made for exactly the sort of winter evening when opening a new book becomes part of Christmas itself.
Four books, four ways into Nordic Christmas
The four books approach the season from different directions. Christmas in the Nordic Countries provides the panorama, travelling across borders to find the connections and differences that shape Christmas around the North. Christmas in Denmark stays in one country long enough to discover the details of Danish Jul. The Night The Yule Cat Saved The Yule Goat story ventures into the older, stranger territory of Nordic Christmas folklore. Jólabókaflóð 2026: The All Things Nordic Almanac, finally, celebrates the pleasure of Christmas reading itself while opening windows onto Nordic culture far beyond the festive season. Together they form an ATN Christmas shelf spanning traditions, travel, folklore, literature, food, history and the particular relationship between winter darkness and the warmth people create within it.
Give the North this Christmas
Books suit Nordic Christmas particularly well. They can be opened on Christmas Eve in the Icelandic tradition, read during the quiet days between Christmas and New Year, used to inspire a future journey or brought back from the shelf when another winter begins. For someone discovering the Nordic festive season, start with Christmas in the Nordic Countries. For the Denmark lover, choose Christmas in Denmark. For folklore, strange creatures and a rather less conventional Christmas, read The Night The Yule Cat Saved The Yule Goat. And for the reader who wants stories, places, ideas and unexpected discoveries from across the North, there is Jólabókaflóð 2026: The All Things Nordic Almanac. Or forget about choosing: put all four together and give someone a small Nordic Christmas library.
The All Things Nordic Christmas collection
The four Christmas books are part of the growing All Things Nordic publishing collection. Editions, formats and purchase links can be found in the All Things Nordic Book Catalogue:
All Things Nordic — Christmas in the Nordic Countries; All Things Nordic — Christmas in Denmark; All Things Nordic — Jólabókaflóð 2026: The All Things Nordic Almanac; All Things Nordic — The Night The Yule Cat Saved The Yule Goat.
