December 22nd

 

None of the New Jersey cats knew quite what to expect from tonight’s visitor. He was described on the Interwebs as “Doorway Sniffer” or Gáttaþefur in Íslenska. Sparky thought that something that sniffed at your doorways belonged in a horror movie and crawled under the bed. Clementine wondered about the laufabrauð he was sniffing to find. That translated to leaf-bread. Was that bread made from acorn flour? Bread shaped like a leaf? Whatever it was, they didn’t have any. The yarn lady had some multigrain bread with all sorts of inclusions, but none of them were leaves. Seeds, yes, grains, yes, but no leaves. Unfortunately, it was in a bag that needed thumbs to open, or she’d leave him a slice on the table with the sneakers.

BC and Ursula were of the opinion that these intruders were disrupting their rest too much and planned to settle down in their coziest sleeping spot and ignore the Jólasveinarnir completely. It was now officially winter and the darkest day of the year, so extra sleep was definitely required.

 

At around 2am, Clementine was awakened by someone blowing their nose. She looked around, wondering if the yarn lady was coming down with a cold. No, she was sound asleep, so Clem jumped to the floor and headed out to explore. In the living room she found a troll with a long red nose that he was wiping with a large handkerchief. “Heddo,” said the troll, “I have a bad code in my does.” He tried to say the last word several more times and then shook his head. Clem realized what he’d been trying to say and replied, “Oh! You have a cold in your nose. Wow, that’s got to be a problem if you’re supposed to be sniffing at our doors to see if we have some laufabrauð.

The troll blew his nose so hard that it sounded like a foghorn and was finally able to take a good breath through his nose. “Ah, much better. Yeah, I’m not even bothering to look for it here. Practically no one in Ísland makes it anymore unless they’re trying to impress someone. From what I can tell it’s devilishly hard to make and the finished ones break if you breathe on them. I’d rather have a shortbread cookie. Who ever came up with the idea of frying a cookie? It’s bad for your cholesterol and stress level. Do you have any cookies?”

Clementine shook her head, replying that she had thought it was a bread thing, so she had put out the yarn lady’s special bread for him. Gáttaþefur examined the bag, opened it and helped himself to a slice. “Oh, this is much better than some stupid cookie. I like this. Do you have any crowberry jam to put on it?” Realizing that cats don’t care about jam he rummaged around in the fridge and found some black raspberry jam and happily slathered the bread with that. He was such an enthusiastic eater that there was jam on his nose and eyebrows before he was finished.

“If I find lovely bread and jam in the other houses I visit tonight it won’t be my cholesterol I’ll worry about. It will be my blood sugar. Sugary jams and carbs! Oh, this is heavenly. He headed for the door and barely remembered to turn back and put small gifts in the sneakers. “Góð jól!”