I heard an interesting story on NPR a few years back…it seems, Santas Elves (in Iceland) are really nasty guys-one is called “sausage snatcher”. Anyway, what are the local Christmas customs-do kids get their presents on Christmas eve? and, do you guys eat that horrible “lutefisk” stuff?
And, what do you usually drink? Glogg?
Can’t tell specifically about Iceland but in Scandinavian folklore there was a creature known as tomte that lived on the farms and took care of the animals. If he didn’t get porridge on christmas eve he would do someting horrible to the farm. The tomte is quite different from the jolly jultomte, eg christmas tomte.
While waiting for an actual Icelander to set us straight, I’ll share what I’ve learned from my friend’s Icelandic boyfriend:
There are 13 “Santas” in Iceland, plus their mean mother Grýla and their not-so-mean father, whose name I really can’t recall and probably couldn’t spell. Each jólasveinn (“Christmas guy”, approximately) has a distinct role and personality; one is a sort of Peeping Tom who stares through windows and another one bangs around at night. I have no doubt that one could be a sausage-snatcher. 
The first guy comes around 13 days before Christmas, then the next, and so on. Then, after Christmas, they leave one by one. Children put a shoe on their window sill and if they’ve been good, the jólasveinn leaves them a gift. Bad kids get a potato.
Also, there’s apparently this Christmas Cat character whom lazy kids get fed to as a Christmas snack, but this came up in later parts of the night and my memory is slightly hazy.