We expect your children have written to Father Christmas with suggestions about the toy or two which would make them most happy later in their stockings later this month and you’ve watched them send these missives letters to Santa, left overnight on the hearth, despatched via Royal Mail to the polar post-box or using the special delivery services of a Christmas Box kindly set up by a decorations-bedecked garden centre. But does he write back? With presents to coordinate for billions of children around the globe, he really must be pushed for time in the festive season.
And so, starting in 1920 when JRR Tolkien’s oldest son turned three, and every Christmas thereafter for twenty three years, Tolkien wrote and illustrated a letter that purported to be from Father Christmas telling his children, John, Michael, Christopher and Priscilla, about his travels and adventures since the previous Christmas. Each was delivered in an envelope with Tolkein’s own ‘authentic’ North Pole stamps and postmarks. These imaginative and heart-warming letters were written purely for his own four children in the distinctive shaky handwriting of an elderly Father Christmas. It wasn’t until after his death, that they were gathered together into a book for other families to enjoy – and you can still buy it, with an easy-to-read text alongside the handwritten letters from any good bookshop at this time of year. You can also see one of the originals in the Bodleian’s Treasure exhibition which runs until 11th February.
JRR Tolkein is best known for his Lord of the Rings trilogy, but many of the characters that we’ve seen on screen with Frodo, Gandalf and Gollum, made their first appearances in Tolkein’s writing in these Christmas letters as Father Christmas described life at the North Pole.
At his side is his main helper the accident-prone North Polar Bear – whose bungling escapades include snapping the North Pole in half, accidentally setting off a storeroom of sparklers, and flooding the bath which soaks the Christmas parcels below. And the mischievous North Polar Bear is particularly funny when he annotates Father Christmas’s descriptions with his own version of the mishaps that have befallen him.
The North Pole is also home to troublesome bat-riding goblins whom the elves battle to keep them at bay, and whose presence mirrors the darkening mood in the UK during the Second World War, the background context adding an interesting yet light touch of social history.
Charles Dickens ‘Christmas Carol’ is another perennial favourite at Christmas time – whether in book or film format – which is also rich with social history. For a particularly memorable version, we recommend a trip to Oxford’s North Wall Arts centre where the ever-inventive Creative Theatre Company are bringing Victorian London to life for you, transforming the stage into a dilapidated Victorian town house, and adding a miser, music and Marley’s ghost to produce a quality quirky show that’s a particular cracker for the older children, teens and adults.
It’s largely thanks to A Christmas Carol, that many of the scenes and traditions we associate with Christmas are so widely agreed geographically – from a turkey on the table while family gather around a Christmas tree to the snow-covered landscapes we rarely see in December. Dickens however would have expected snow however as, during his childhood a white Christmas was the norm for several years perhaps creating his preconceptions about ‘normal’ weather conditions at Christmas when the Thames is said to have frozen over on multiple occasions and ‘Frost Fairs’ were held upon ice. During the winter of 1813-14 it was apparently thick enough to bear the weight of any visiting elephant.
On stage, this version of ‘A Christmas Carol’ the ghosts and poignant blasts from Scrooge’s past are all present, with a scruffy band of urchins and jolly carol-singers to bring lessons of love and redemption, with light-hearts, laughter and the magic of Christmas into the darkness of a cold and harsh Victorian age: sitting at tables around the stage with twinkling lights above, it’s the perfect place to mull over how times have thankfully changed. And to enjoy a warm mulled wine during the intimate performance.
Creation Theatre Company’s A Christmas Carol runs from 2nd December until 6th January (book at http://www.thenorthwall.com).
For a printed edition of a Christmas Carol with illustrations guaranteed to entice children into text written in an old-fashioned style that may not instantly appeal, we recommend the edition illustrated by Quentin Blake in his inimitable humorous and colourful style.
Esther Lafferty's Inkwell 