Iceland Roundup: Top Stories Of 2025, Audience Questions & Yule Lads Explained

The Reykjavík Grapevine’s Iceland Roundup brings you the top news with a healthy dash of local views. In this episode, Grapevine publisher Jón Trausti Sigurðarson is joined by Heimildin editor Aðalsteinn Kjartansson and Grapevine friend and contributor Sindri Eldon to round up the stories making headlines in recent weeks.

On the docket this week:

Top stories of the year, including the top political scandal of 2025, the biggest political event, key ecological and geological events, and the top cultural event; We nominate the Mess of the Year, the bankruptcy of the year, discuss the rise of right-wing politics in Iceland, and share our favourite tourism-related stories of the year; We answer questions from our audience on topics such as Christmas gifts, the Icelandic language, traditional Christmas dinners, hikes, and forestry; We do our best to explain how having 13 Yule Lads works in practice, and how there are actually records of a total of 80 different Yule Lads and ladies from various parts of Iceland. We then discuss our favourite Yule Lad names.