The Father Christmas letters

A collection of illustrated letters that Tolkien wrote to his children each Christmas over more than twenty years, supposedly from Father Christmas at the North Pole. In them Father Christmas, with his clumsy helper the North Polar Bear, describes mishaps, mischief by goblins and the troubles of running a busy household in the snow. Tolkien added his own drawings and invented alphabets. Warm, funny and inventive, the letters offer a glimpse of the author as a loving father and show his story-making gift in a small, domestic form.