J.R.R. Tolkien's Letters from Santa Claus



In 1920, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote and illustrated a letter from Santa Claus for his three-year old son. This became a regular tradition for his children for the next twenty-three years. Below the fold, you can find a copy of one such letter as well as a partial transcription from Letters of Note.





Santa tells the Tolkien boys that a polar bear climbed up on his roof and fell through:

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.


Link -via Flavorwire

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this brings back so many happy memories. my mom has a book with all the letters and artwork, and we would read them for bedtime stories when we were little at Christmastime.... well, we still do read them, usually on Christmas Eve. We take turns reading the letters. I love the Father Christmas Letters!
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