J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Father Christmas Letters was first published in 1976.
The book collects letters Tolkien wrote and illustrated for his children while pretending to be Father Christmas. The letters began in 1920, when Tolkien’s eldest child, John, was three years old, and continued for several decades. They describe events at the North Pole and introduce recurring figures such as the North Polar Bear.
The letters combine handwritten text, drawings, invented characters, and playful narrative. They were private family creations during Tolkien’s lifetime rather than a conventional novel intended for commercial publication.
The collection was edited and published after Tolkien’s death, with the first book edition appearing in 1976. It is sometimes mistaken for a Middle-earth text, but the letters belong to a separate imaginative tradition rooted in a parent’s Christmas correspondence with his children.