The Most Important Take-Away From Tolkien's Christmas Letters

Fr Rennier is a married Catholic Priest of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter. He and his wife have five children, hence his personal interest in Tolkien's Christmas Letters.

From Aleteia

By Fr Michael Rennier

If Tolkien spent energy on his writing career, he spent even more on his children.

On Christmas Eve in 1920, the author J.R.R. Tolkien penned a letter to his three-year-old son, which he signed from “Father Christmas.” Thus started a long-running tradition of letters from Father Christmas to the Tolkien children. The letters developed over the years from simple notes into full-blown stories with illustrations, invented languages, and authentic stamps from the North Pole.

Not only is the creation of an elaborate fairy story entirely to be expected from a professional writer like Tolkien, but it really is a charming example of fatherhood. Tolkien, says Joseph Pearce, was, “first and foremost, the paterfamilias.” If he spent energy on his writing career, he spent even more on his children.

Aleteia writer Philip Kosloski, following Tolkien’s example, writes his own letters to his children. I haven’t followed suit, but thoroughly approve of the idea. The important thing, I think, isn’t the specific tradition but to be sure that, as a parent, some effort is being put into some sort of family tradition. We cannot allow other concerns to crowd out our family time.

I admit, I’m not great at following my own advice. But my wife is.

Each Advent morning, our children wake up bright-eyed and, first thing, tumble down the stairs to open their Advent boxes. Overnight, their mother filled each box with a chocolate which is promptly looted. It isn’t unusual that I’ll be in the kitchen making a pre-dawn cup of coffee and one of our younger daughters will come in with half a chocolate still smeared on her face. It’s really a simple tradition, but it seems to have captured their imagination. (Nothing is more luxurious to a child than candy before breakfast). The first night of Advent, our 7-year-old voluntarily put herself to bed at 7:30 pm so she could “wake up earlier,” and get to her box.

Growing up, my family had our little traditions as well. For instance, I remember our family one-on-one basketball championship, which involved endless rounds of games in the driveway, elaborate ceremonies, and plenty of bragging. Most often, our dad was champ but occasionally one of us boys might get lucky and wrest it away from him. Or, at Christmastime, every Christmas Eve we went to church before making a tour of local neighborhoods to view the Christmas lights, and then to our grandparents where my frugal grandpa would carefully unwrap each present fully convinced he was going to re-use the paper. The next day, they always had a big extended-family party and all the cousins would watch Star Wars while my grandpa burned (yes) the very same wrapping paper from the night before in the fireplace.

I wouldn’t say that our family growing up had the most elaborate traditions, but they were dependable, and they were ours. They were more than enough for me. Time goes by, families change and age and expand. Some of those traditions no longer exist. I would do anything to get them back.

A peak into an inner life

Even when certain traditions are widespread, the way they’re embodied within each particular family is unique. It belongs to them alone. I think this is why they’re so special to us. They contain knowledge that’s almost mythical, a store of custom and habit that reveals something of the inner life of a family. Time and personality and love are all bound up in our traditions.

To adults, it might not even seem like a big deal. It’s not all that hard to put a piece of candy in a box, but to my 7-year-old, it’s a huge event. My dad might not even remember building pinewood cars with us or teaching us how to play basketball, but I certainly do. My grandfather probably never knew how warm and inviting his home was, and how the sight of him smoking his pipe out on the back porch while grilling the Christmas turkey was almost an annual rite of passage for me. He was a symbol that it had been a good year.

It took me a shockingly long time as a father to realize how important the little traditions we’ve developed in our house really are. Watching my children react so strongly to the return of their Advent boxes provided a strong reminder.

Today, the letters Tolkien wrote to his children have been gathered up and published.

Tolkien, though, never wrote them with the hope of publication. He wrote them for his children. For him, that was enough. To create a small family tradition, a simple thing like a letter with a drawing on it -- who knows how much it meant to his children? Who knows how many times they re-read those letters after he was gone?

I hope someday my own children will remember the way their mother put so much effort into filling our house with creativity and joy. Large or small, past or present, our traditions will always be a special family treasure, a living memory of the love we share.