J.R.R. Tolkien’s Christmas letters from Santa Claus
J.R.R. Tolkien was a master at inventing myths. His Middle Earth world was so rich in believability and vast in texture that Lord of The Rings has become one of the most beloved fictional worlds of all time. Tolkien had written the original The Hobbit book for his children; however, this was not the only thing that he had written for his offspring.
Between 1920 and 1943, Tolkien wrote a letter to his four children, John, Michael, Christopher and Priscilla, from Santa Claus. He also went to the length of creating official-looking envelopes and even postage stamps to heighten the level of believability in his kids.
Within the letters were all sorts of fantastical stories about the kind of year that Santa had had in the run-up to Christmas Day, including fighting Goblins and watching the Northern Lights come on and off. He also mentioned a furry helper by the name of North Polar Bear and his children Paksu and Valkotukka.
“Isn’t the North Polar Bear silly?” Tolkien asked in one letter. “He turned on all the Northern Lights for two years in one go. You have never heard or seen anything like it. I have tried to draw a picture of it: but I am too shaky to do it properly, and you can’t paint fizzing light, can you?”
Others included reminders to be kind to those less fortunate: “If you find that not many of the things you asked for have come, and not perhaps quite so many as sometimes, remember that this Christmas all over the world there are a terrible number of poor and starving people.”
Check out this full letter written by Tolkien as Santa from 1925 below.
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.
