[This December we commemorate the 200th anniversary of Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (well, maybe we do—see Monday’s post!). That was one of many Christmas stories I read to my sons when they were young, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy it and four other such holiday classics!]
On three
distinct ways to contextualize J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic
Christmas texts.
1)
Father Christmas: I’m sure Tolkien wasn’t the
first to use that particular phrase for St. Nicholas/Santa Claus, but as with
everything Tolkien wrote it was still a purposeful and powerful choice. These
letters were texts that Tolkien created for his own children, sending them a
letter (with his
own accompanying illustrations) each holiday season for more than two
decades (and were only published decades later, after his death and edited by
his daughter-in-law and
former secretary Baillie). As such, they were not only from the children’s
father, but also represented a powerful reminder that Santa himself is in many
ways (or at least had evolved into by the 20th century) a parental
alter ego, an expression of what parents and parental figures want to offer and
be for their children at their best.
2)
Fantasy: Tolkien created the Father Christmas
letters every year from 1920 to 1943, and over that same period he wrote
another, slightly more famous text: The
Hobbit, which he began in the early 1930s and published
in 1937; at that time he also immediately began work on The Lord of the Rings, although it
wouldn’t be published until the 1950s. Since he envisioned that fantasy novel
as a children’s book first and foremost, it’s difficult not to see a connection
between these two creative works; moreover, the Father Christmas letters
included a number of elements that Tolkien brought into his fantastic world of
Middle-earth, from elves, goblins, and giant bears to characters who lived in
holes in the ground (the network of underground rooms at the North Pole was my
sons’ favorite Father Christmas letters illustration). Seeing these foundations
for one of the most
foundational fantasies is an added bonus for any reader of the Father
Christmas letters.
3)
Reality: Tolkien strongly
resisted any analyses of The Lord of
the Rings as an allegory for World War II, and I always try to honor that
authorial perspective even if I don’t entirely agree. But of course the Father
Christmas letters are set on Earth in the 20th century, fantastic as
many elements of them are, and so in this text Tolkien did not resist making
such world-historical connections: mentioning
the war overtly in his 1939 letter, and then adding battles against
threatening goblins into the subsequent letters. When I teach my Intro to Sci
Fi and Fantasy course (as I will get to again this Spring), we talk a lot about
the relationship of the fantastic to the realistic in each and every text and
genre we engage, and it’s fascinating to see how Tolkien navigated that balance
in these two fantastic texts and worlds he was creating side-by-side in the
late 1930s. One of many reasons to share the Father Christmas letters with our
own families every holiday season!
Next
Christmas story tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Christmas or holiday readings you’d share?
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