Before J.R.R. Tolkien achieved worldwide success with The Lord of the Rings, he had a fellowship of his own. He met with a group of writers and scholars at The Eagle and Child pub in Oxford. They called themselves the Inklings.
My book club adopted the name. We read only works by the writers who were in the original group. Tolkien was not the only famous member: C.S. Lewis, author of Mere Christianity, The Space Trilogy, and the Narnia series, was another. Occasionally we read writers we consider “Inkling-adjacent” such as G.K. Chesterton.
All three of these men said much about Christmas. Chesterton (1874-1936), a writer of newspaper columns, magazine articles, and books, was a stout and joyful defender of the Christian faith. His background in Catholic social teaching led him to once proclaim that “Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home.” While I understand his larger point of compassion for those without, I don’t agree that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were homeless. Instead, I prefer Mark Steyn’s thought: the Holy Family were forced to relocate due to a census imposed by a nannying, blue-state-like government.
Chesterton loved the spectacle of the feast as well. “The more we are proud that the Bethlehem story is plain enough to be understood by the shepherds, and almost by the sheep, the more do we let ourselves go, in dark and gorgeous imaginative frescoes or pageants about the mystery and majesty of the Three Magian Kings,” he once wrote for an essay in his book Christendom in Dublin.
Lewis (1898-1963) too loved Christmas, but hated the merchandising of the holiday. In his essay “What Christmas Means to Me,” he referred to it as a "commercial racket." “Long before December 25th everyone is worn out – physically worn out by weeks of daily struggle in overcrowded shops…. They are in no trim for merry-making; much less…to take part in a religious act.”
He focuses his thoughts on the true meaning of the day: the Incarnation. In his book Miracles he wrote, “The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this.” Lewis included this thought in his final Narnia book, The Last Battle, when Lucy said “Once in our world, a stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world.”
“Well here comes Christmas! That astonishing thing that no commercialism can defile – unless we let it.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
Tolkien (1892–1973) told his stoies to his four children; in fact, his three boys heard The Hobbit before the rest of the world. He continued his world-building in an annual Christmas letter to his children from Father Christmas at the North Pole. He sent the first of the hand-illustrated letters to his three-year-old son John in 1920, and wrote an annual letter until 1943. Featured characters such as “Polar Bear” who would mark the letters with his thick cursive script. Snow-elves, red gnomes, and cave men capered through the letters over the years as Tolkien described Father Christmas’ North Pole home in word and art.
The letters reflected the times Tolkien’s family lived through. In 1940, Father Christmas sent a short note, saying: “We are having rather a difficult time this year. This horrible war is reducing all of 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!”
In his last letter, Father Christmas let the youngest Tolkien, Priscilla, know that even though he didn’t write anymore, he’d keep her letters forever: "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."
Baillie Tolkien (Christopher Tolkien's wife) edited the entire series of letters, and George Allen and Unwin published Letters from Father Christmas in 1976, three years after Tolkien died. Parents and children across the English-speaking world today cherish the letters as their own Christmas tradition.
