Between 1920 and 1943, renowned author J.R.R. Tolkien wrote and illustrated a series of letters from Father Christmas for his children. Christendom professor Dr. Thomas Stanford reveals the gift of these letters in this latest piece for Instaurare Magazine, and how they continue to amaze and surprise to this day.
The young professor and father, J.R.R. Tolkien, longed to foster and preserve the wonder of Christmas for his children. So, every Christmas, beginning in 1920 and continuing until 1943, Tolkien would painstakingly create beautifully hand-written letters and artworks for his children. In these letters, Tolkien posed as Father Christmas in what became an annual Tolkien family tradition, as the children would eventually write to Father Christmas, and he would write back, answering their questions and telling tales about his life at the North Pole.
Taken together over time, the letters do not present a meticulously structured narrative; the events related in the letters are more episodic, although there are recurring characters from the North Pole neighborhood, as well as recurring challenges faced by Father Christmas, from supply shortages to attacks by goblins. Inevitably, as well, there is some misadventure involving Karhu, the accident-prone, but sometimes heroic North Polar Bear, or NPB, who lives and works with Father Christmas.
Father Christmas’s ongoing story is truly a story woven out of the threads of fairy land, the threads of the wondrous. The fairy world of Father Christmas constantly amazes and surprises us, causing us to wonder by loosening up our understanding—our reasoned, logical approach to making sense of things—and by opening up new paths to belief. The letters introduce fabulous adventures involving the Man in the Moon, the Snow Man (who is the gardener for Father Christmas), snow children, helpful and hardworking elves, a gruff Cave Bear, brave red gnomes, younger polar bears (including nephews of Karhu), dancing penguins, and the great enemies of Father Christmas: dragons and goblins!
This story comes from the latest issue of Instaurare Magazine, the official magazine of Christendom College. Read more from Instaurare here!
Consistent with Tolkien’s developing principles of fairy stories, extreme care was taken by Tolkien to present the letters of Father Christmas as “true.” The realism of the letters is an intense realism, an authenticity achieved by attention to minute details and by the whole idea of the letters as being real mail: real envelopes with what seemed to be real stamps and postmarks, coming from a real place, and describing events as though they were real and then, as well, recording the events in color illustrations as though to prove their reality.
First letter from Father Christmas, 1920. The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS. Tolkien Drawings 37 and 38. © The Tolkien Estate Ltd 1976.
In late December 1920, something truly wonderful arrived for three-year-old John Tolkien, a boy who lived with his baby brother, Michael, and their parents, Ronald and Edith Tolkien, in a very modest flat in Oxford: There by the hearth, the lad found a unique envelope with an unusual stamp, and within, a letter and an accompanying watercolor illustration, both created by Father Christmas himself! The envelope was postmarked from the North Pole and the address was written in a beautiful script. The stamp was the price of “two kisses.”
Occasionally, the letters would just appear in the house, but sometimes the postman himself would bring them with the mail, Tolkien having handed the letter to the mail carrier in advance. According to one of Tolkien’s biographers, Humphrey Carpenter, the children once even found a snowy, wet boot print placed conspicuously on the rug, indicating Father Christmas had definitely been there! Genuineness, truthfulness, and authenticity were the hallmarks of the experience Tolkien intended for his children, for they needed to believe.
And perhaps what they needed to believe was not so much that Father Christmas was real in the way their father was real, but rather that the love shown by Father Christmas made known to them the real love that their father had and always would have for them. These letters were a lesson in belief, trust, and love, and the love in the letters was what mattered most, and what continues to matter, for one can see the love in the details. Examine the first letter and illustration on the previous page, as well as the envelope on the right.
Note the shaky, squiggly handwriting of Father Christmas in his letter: as he’ll mention in later missives, he’s almost 2000 years old, so it’s not bad handwriting for someone that ancient of days!
Beginning with this very humble first letter in 1920, the reader gradually learns more and more about Father Christmas and his world, including his name, Nicholas. In subsequent letters, Father Christmas praised the children for everything from their improving penmanship to their kindness toward one another, and Father Christmas encouraged them in many ways to be virtuous: to share their toys and not to think of only themselves during Christmas, and particularly to think of those less fortunate.
The first envelope from Father Christmas, 1920. The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS. Tolkien Drawings 36. © The Tolkien Estate Ltd 1976.
For example, in 1931, as the effects of the Great Depression continued to be felt in England and much of the world, Father Christmas begins his letter, “My dear Children, . . . if you find that not many of the things that you have asked for have come, and not perhaps as many as sometimes, remember that this Christmas all over the world there are a terrible number of poor and starving people. I . . . have had to do some collecting of food and clothes, and toys too, for the children whose fathers and mothers and friends cannot give them anything, sometimes not even dinner. I know yours won’t forget you.”
Tolkien’s paternal love shows through every single stamp, envelope, letter, and illustration. And, if only for a moment, in reading the letters and enjoying the illustrations, we are all invited to become children again ourselves, enjoying Christmas from a fresh perspective.
In the 1920s, Tolkien could already see the Christmas miracle being diluted by modernism, commercialism, and materialism. Belief itself was at risk, and, sadly, it continues to be at risk. How can one believe in a miracle if one can’t believe in anything except what can be measured and weighed or have some monetary value placed on it?
Indeed, if someone can’t be moved to wonder by what he sees, how can he find room for belief, for assenting to the truth of something unseen? Chesterton wrote, “The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.” The fairy world of Tolkien’s letters helps foster the wonder that is necessary for belief, including belief in the Christmas miracle.
And, if one sees nothing else in the Letters of Father Christmas, he must see a father’s love that mirrors God’s love, as the Father of us all. And love, that wonder of wonders, maybe that’s the real gift of the Letters of Father Christmas!
Written by Thomas W. Stanford III, Ph.D.
Thomas W. Stanford III, Ph.D., is a professor of English language and literature at Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia. He earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from the University of Dallas, and his Ph.D. from the Catholic University of America. His scholarly work focuses on both American and British authors.
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