Pisma Djeda Božićnjaka

More than thirty years before the publication of The Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien began a different writing exercise. It involved neither hobbits nor Middle-earth. From 1920, the author played the role of Father Christmas, writing annual Christmas letters to his children John, Michael, Christopher, and Priscilla.

Tolkien continued to do this for more than twenty years. It was not until 1976 that a collection of this correspondence, J. R. R. Tolkien's Letters from Father Christmas, was presented to the public. Readers unfamiliar with the book will be enchanted by the new edition, marking the centenary of the first letter he sent to his eldest son, with beautiful reproductions of letters and pictures of Father Christmas, and his ornate (and sometimes illegible) handwriting transcribed for reading aloud (which I recommend).

Some of the letters are quite short—Father Christmas has a lot of work to do, as he constantly reminds children of—but others are full and exciting stories. Almost all of the letters contain messages and remarks from his friend and assistant, the Great North Bear, who writes very poorly but has a good heart. The North Bear usually messes up something – he fires 20,000 silver sprinklers, falls asleep in a bathtub with the tap running – but he bravely fights off the goblins that occasionally attack the North Pole, and is helped by his nephews Paksu and Valkotukka.

The book also includes these special extras:

• an exclusive color sheet showing all the North Pole postage stamps that appeared on Santa Claus' letters
• a revised and expanded introduction
• color reproductions of all of Santa Claus's paintings, drawings, letters, and envelopes, some of which are published for the first time
• a final version of the text, specially edited for this edition
• the book comes in a decorative box with a North Pole postage stamp