“Letters from Father Christmas” : A Review for the Advent Season

In 1920, a small boy asked his father a simple question: “What is Father Christmas like and where does he live?” 

In answer, the father began the tradition of writing a newsy letter from Father Christmas to his children, detailing the preparations for the holiday, the past year’s events, and other fun tidbits from the North Pole. 

The letters he wrote span from 1920 to 1943 and give insight into family life, political and economic affairs in England, and the imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien, for he is the father who penned these extraordinary letters.

In the centenary edition of Tolkien’s Letters from Father Christmas, edited by Baillie Tolkien, full color photographs of the envelopes and letters are included, showing off Tolkien’s imitation of Father Christmas’s very shaky handwriting and his fascinating pen and ink drawings of life in the North Pole. 

Though our family has never included legends or traditions of Santa Claus in our own Christmas celebrations, my children have loved reading Tolkien’s Letters from Father Christmas. I have loved it too, as I have looked back on my own father’s “Santa letters.” Perhaps, with Father Christmas’s involvement, a father feels less sentimental and more able to express the emotion of his deepest feelings as he pens loving words to his children….

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