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Literary Advent Calendar: Letters from Father Christmas

By December 19, 2016Reading Excerpts

J. R. R Tolkien is a celebrated author, best known for his magical lands created in the Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbit. Less known is the fact that every year for 23 years, Tolkien wrote letters from Father Christmas to his children, and it’s these letters that we’re featuring in today’s literary advent calendar!

Every day of advent, we’re bringing you a literary snippet, excerpt or poem and today it’s a letter, from Father Christmas (written by Tolkien) in 1925.

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 (1925 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

You may wonder why we’re sharing personal letters from Santa to Tolkien’s children. After his death, the letters were collected together and can be purchased in a beautiful volume called Letters From Father Christmas and it’s a beautiful Christmas book!

We’ll be back tomorrow with another snippet and with just a few more days to go now, we hope the excitement is high in your house!



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