Letters from Father Christmas by JRR Tolkien. 1939-45
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Christmas 1939
I am glad you managed to send me two letters although you have been rather busy working.
I hope your Bingo family will have a jolly Christmas, and behave themselves. Tell Billy-is not that the father’s name?—not to be so cross. They are not to quarrel over the crackers I am sending.
I am very busy and things are very difficult this year owing to this horrible war. Many of my messengers have never come back. I haven’t been able to do you a very nice picture this year. It is supposed to show me carrying things down our new path to the sleigh-sheds. Paksu is in front with a torch looking most frightfully pleased with himself (as usual). There is just a glimpse (quite enough) of Polar Bear strolling along behind. He is of course carrying nothing.
There have been no adventures here, and nothing funny has happened-and that is because Polar Bear has done hardly anything to “help”, as he calls it, this year.
– ROT! –
I don’t think he has been lazier than usual, but he has been not at all well. He ate some fish that disagreed with him last November and was afraid he might have to go to hospital in Greenland. But after living only on warm water for a fortnight he suddenly threw the glass and jug out of the window and decided to get better.
He drew the trees in the picture, and I am afraid they are not very good.
– Best part of it –
They look more like umbrellas! Still he sends love to you and all your bears. “Why don’t you have Polar Cubs instead of Bingos and Koalas?” he says.
Why not?
Give my love to Christopher and Michael and to John when you next write.
Love from Father Christmas.
Christmas 1940
Just a short letter to wish you a very happy Christmas. Please give my love to Christopher. We are having rather a difficult time this year. This horrible war is reducing all our stocks, and in so many countries children are living far from their homes. Polar Bear has had a very busy time trying to get our address-lists corrected. I am glad you are still at home!
I wonder what you will think of my picture. “Penguins don’t live at the North Pole,” you will say. I know they don’t, but we have got some all the same. What you would call “evacuees”, I believe (not a very nice word); except that they did not come here to escape the war, but to find it! They had heard such stories of the happenings up in the North (including a quite untrue story that Polar Bear and all the Polar Cubs had been blown up, and that I had been captured by Goblins) that they swam all the way here to see if they could help me. Nearly 50 arrived.
The picture is of Polar Bear dancing with their chiefs. They amuse us
enormously: they don’t really help much, but are always playing funny dancing games, and trying to imitate the walk of Polar Bear and the Cubs.
Very much love from your old friend,
Father Christmas
Day 17
Christmas 1941
I am so glad you did not forget to write to me again this year. The number of children who keep up with me seems to be getting smaller: I expect it is because of this horrible war, and that when it is over things will improve again, and I shall be as busy as ever. But at present so terribly many people have lost their homes: or have left them; half the world seems in the wrong place.
And even up here we have been having troubles. I don’t mean only with my stores: of course they are getting low. They were already last year, and I have not been able to fill them up, so that I have now to send what I can instead of what is asked for. But worse than that has happened.
I expect you remember that some years ago we had trouble with the Goblins; and we thought we had settled it. Well, it broke out again this autumn, worse than it has been for centuries. We have had several battles, and for a while my house was besieged. In November it began to look likely that it would be captured and all my goods, and that Christmas Stockings would all remain empty all over the world.
Would not that have been a calamity? It has not happened —and that is largely due to the efforts of Polar Bear—
N.B. That’s mee!
but it was not until the beginning of this month that I was able to send out any messengers! I expect the Goblins thought that with so much war going on this was a fine chance to recapture the North. They must have been preparing for some years; and they made a huge new tunnel which had an outlet many miles away.
It was early in October that they suddenly came out in thousands. Polar Bear says there were at least a million, but that is his favourite big number.
There wer at leest a hundred million.
Anyway, he was still fast asleep at the time, and I was rather drowsy myself; the weather was rather warm for the time of the year and Christmas seemed far away. There were only one or two elves about the place; and of course Paksu and Valkotukka (also fast asleep). The Penguins had all gone away in the spring.
Luckily Goblins cannot help yelling and beating on drums when they mean to fight; so we all woke up in time, and got the gates and doors barred and the windows shuttered. Polar Bear got on the roof and fired rockets into the Goblin hosts as they poured up the long reindeer-drive; but that did not stop them for long. We were soon surrounded.
I have not time to tell you all the story. I had to blow three blasts on the great Horn (Windbeam). It hangs over the fireplace in the hall, and if I have not told you about it before it is because I have not had to blow it for over 4 hundred years: its sound carries as far as the North Wind blows. All the same it was three whole days before help came: snowboys, polar bears, and hundreds and hundreds of elves.
They came up behind the Goblins: and Polar Bear (really awake this time) rushed out with a blazing branch off the fire in each paw. He must have killed dozens of Goblins (he says a million).
But there was a big battle down in the plain near the North Pole in November, in which the Goblins brought hundreds of new companies out of their tunnels. We were driven back to the Cliff, and it was not until Polar Bear and a party of his younger relatives crept out by night, and blew up the entrance to the new tunnels with nearly 100lbs of gunpowder that we got the better of them—for the present.
But bang went all the stuff for making fireworks and crackers (the cracking part) for some years. The North Pole cracked and fell over (for the second time), and we have not yet had time to mend it. Polar Bear is rather a hero (I hope he does not think so himself)
I DO!
But of course he is a very MAGICAL animal really, and Goblins can’t do much to him, when he is awake and angry. I have seen their arrows bouncing off him and breaking.
Well, that will give you some idea of events, and you will understand why I have not had time to draw a picture this year-rather a pity, because there have been such exciting things to draw—and why I have not been able to collect the usual things for you, or even the very few that you asked for.
I am told that nearly all the Alison Uttley books have been burnt, and I could not find one of ‘Moldy Warp’. I must try and get one for next time. I am sending you a few other books, which I hope you will like. There is not a great deal else, but I send you very much love.
I like to hear about your Bear Bingo, but really I think he is too old and important to hang up stockings! But Polar Bear seems to feel that any kind of bear is a relation. And he said to me, “Leave it to me, old man (that, I am afraid is what he often calls me): I will pack a perfectly beautiful selection for his Poliness (yes, Poliness!)”. So I shall try and bring the ‘beautiful selection’ along: what it is, I don’t Know!
Very much love from your old friend
Father Christmas and Polar Bear
Day 18
Christmas 1942
My dear Priscilla,
Polar Bear tells me that he cannot find my letter from you among this year’s piles. I hope he has not lost any: he is so untidy. Still I expect you have been very busy this autumn at your new school.
I have had to guess what you would like. I think I know fairly well, and luckily we are still pretty well off for books and things of that sort. But really, you know, I have never seen my stocks so low or my cellars so full of empty places (as Polar Bear says).
I am hoping that I shall be able to replenish them before long; though there is so much waste and smashing going on that it makes me rather sad, and anxious too. Deliveries too are more difficult than ever this year with damaged houses and houseless people and all the dreadful events going on in your countries. Of course it is just as peaceful and merry in my land as ever it was.*
We had our snow early this year and then nice crisp frosty nights to keep it white and firm, and bright starry ‘days’ (no sun just now of course).
I am giving as big a party tomorrow night as ever I did, polar cubs (Paksu and Valkotukka, of course, among them) and snowboys, and elves. We are having the Tree indoors this year—in the hall at the foot of the great staircase, and I hope Polar Bear does not fall down the stairs and crash into it after it is all decorated and lit up.
I hope you will not mind my bringing this little letter along with your things tonight: I am short of messengers, as some have great trouble in finding people and have been away for days. Just now I caught Polar Bear in my pantry, and I am sure he had been to a cupboard. I do not know why.
He has wrapped up a mysterious small parcel which he wants me to bring to you-well not exactly to you (he said): “She has got a bear too, as you ought to remember.” Well my dear here is very much love from Father Christmas once more, and very good wishes for 1943.
*No battles at all this year. Quiet as quiet. I think the Goblins were really crushed this time. Windbeam is hanging over the mantelpiece and is quite dusty again, I am glad to say. But Polar Bear has spent lots of time this year making fresh gunpowder—just in case of trouble. He said, “wouldn’t that grubby little Billy like being here!” I don’t know what he was talking about, unless it was about your bear: does he eat gunpowder?
You’ll find out about the pantry! Ha! Ha! I know wot you like. Don’t let that Billy Bear eat it all! Love from Polar Bear.
Messige to Billy Bear from Polar Bear Sorry I could not send you a really good bomb. All our powder has gone up in a big bang. You would have seen wot a really good exploashion is like. If yould been there.
Christmas 1943
A very happy Christmas! I suppose you will be hanging up your stocking just once more: I hope so for I have still a few little things for you. After this I shall have to say “goodbye”, more or less: I mean, I shall not forget you. We always keep the old numbers of our old friends, and their letters; and later on we hope to come back when they are grown up and have houses of their own and children.
My messengers tell me that people call it “grim” this year. I think they mean miserable: and so it is, I fear, in very many places where I was specially fond of going; but I am very glad to hear that you are still not really miserable. Don’t be! I am still very much alive, and shall come back again soon, as merry as ever. There has been no damage in my country: and though my stocks are running rather low I hope soon to put that right
Polar Bear – too “tired” to write himself (so he says)—
I am, reely
sends a special message to you: love and a hug! He says: do ask if she still has a bear called Silly Billy, or something like that; or is he worn out?
Give my love to the others: John and Michael and Christopher-and of course to all your pets that you used to tell me about. Polar Bear and all the
Cubs are very well. They have really been very good this year and have hardly had time to get into any mischief.
I hope you will find most of the things that you wanted and I am very sorry that I have no ‘Cats’ Tongues’ left. But I have sent nearly all the books you
asked for. I hope your stocking will seem full!
Very much love from your old friend,
Father Christmas.
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