TCG Letter #1931

As with Tolkien's previous year's letter, Father Christmas writes to John and Michael. He opens with mention of his shaky hand, blaming North Polar Bear and his big firework, describing it as " the biggest bang in the world, and the most monstrous firework there ever has been." So big in fact that it "shook all the stars out of place" and "broke the moon into four" . Eagle-eyed readers will notice that in Tolkien's drawing, the constellation Ursa Major (Great Bear) is missing, and the moon is represented by four crescent moons.

Later in the letter, FC claims that Polar Bear has ruined the drawing given he can't paint with his big paws, but in a post script Polar Bear calls FC "rude! I can - and write without shaking".

In 'Toward an Annotated Father Christmas' Ian Hollenbaugh further notes the following details:

“He ate quite a lot of my Christmas chocolates before he said he felt better” – The Man in the Moon’s consumption of Christmas goodies before he returns to the Moon is reminiscent of the Man in the Moon eating “plum porridge” in the nursery rhyme that begins “The man in the moon came down too soon” and his failure to do so in Tolkien’s own poem “explaining” the nursery rhyme, “Why the Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon” (1923) and its revision published in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962).

1926	A 76	B 94	C 95	D 99	E 04	F 09	G 12	H 19	I 20	J 23
Letter, 2 pages			L3	27 28	17 18	25 26	25 26	33 37	33 37	33 37
Transcription	8	1/16- 1/22	L3v	26- 28	16	24- 28	24	32	32 36 38	32 36 38
Art - Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) / Sleigh crash / "1926" in stars	7 8	1/17- 1/18 1/19	10 16	29	19	29	29	34	34	34
Art verso - Love from Father Christmas 1926								35	35	35
Envelope - black with white ink "by Southern Post"			31	24	RC	27	27	36	36	36
Stamp - Santa looking right, moon on left, tree on right "2 North-Pole 2" on bottom	1	1/4	31	2	FT	27	27	36	36	36