Dear Friends,
We begin week two of our Advent preparation for Christmas. Do you have any special family traditions to prepare for the celebration? Decorating? Foods? Looking for gifts? Reaching out to relatives?
IMAGE Journal recently printed one of the letters J.R.R. Tolkien would write each Advent. For more than 20 years, from 1920 until 1943, Tolkien wrote letters ‘from Father Christmas’ to his children. First, to his son John; later to his children Michael, Christopher and Priscilla.
The one below was penned in 1925, with the Lord of the Rings creator mimicking Santa’s shaky handwriting. He describes a situation whereby the North Polar Bear fell off the North Pole and through Santa’s ceiling. When all the snow from the roof extinguished his blazing fires, Father Christmas was forced to move house. Of course, they printed a copy of the original handwritten letter. Here you are only going to get the words:
Cliff House
Top of the World
Near the North Pole
Xmas 1925
My dear boys
I am dreadfully busy this year — it makes my hand more shaky than ever when I think of it — and not very rich. In fact, awful things have been happening, and some of the presents have got spoilt and I haven’t got the North Polar Bear to help me and I have had to move house just before Christmas, so you can imagine what a state everything is in, and you will see why I have a new address, and why I can only write one letter between you both.
It all happened like this: one very windy day last November my hood blew off and went and stuck on the top of the North Pole. I told him not to, but the N.P. Bear climbed up to the thin top to get it down — and he did. The pole broke in the middle and fell on the roof of my house, and the N.P. Bear fell through the hole it made into the dining room with my hood over his nose, and all the snow fell off the roof into the house and melted and put out all the fires and ran down into the cellars where I was collecting this year’s presents, and the N.P. Bear’s leg got broken.
He is well again now, but I was so cross with him that he says he won’t try to help me again. I expect his temper is hurt, and will be mended by next Christmas.
I send you a picture of the accident, and of my new house on the cliffs above the N.P. (with beautiful cellars in the cliffs). If John can’t read my old shaky writing (1,925 years old) he must get his father to. When is Michael going to learn to read, and write his own letters to me?
Lots of love to you both and Christopher, whose name is rather like mine.
That’s all. Goodbye.
Father Christmas
All the letters have been published in a book. It is a fun little tradition that only took Tolkien some time and creativity. How about your traditions? Maybe they will be remembered.
Fr. Damian