Letters From Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien

Every time our book club meets, we choose a book and reject several others. This one ended up on the rejection pile. It's too bad.

Letters From Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien is magical in the best sense of the word. 

From 1920 - 1943, Tolkien's children would receive beautifully illustrated letters from Father Christmas, updating them on his adventures at the North Pole, with commentary by his hapless assistant, North Polar Bear (N.P.B.). 

Father Christmas (or F.C. as he begins to refer to himself) delights to receive letters from the children, although as the years go on and the children grow, he receives fewer and fewer. His first letter is addressed to 3-year-old John, and his last to 14-year-old Priscilla. 

We see the children grow up and go off to (presumably boarding) school. We get hints of the magic fading and the very real longing of F.C. to keep the story going. 

In fact, as the letters progress, the letters get longer, the pictures get more detailed, the number of characters grow, and the adventures pick up right where they left off the year before. By the end, when F.C. signs off for what he knows to be the last time, our heart breaks. He, N.P.B., his secretary Ilbereth, the N.P.B.'s nephews Paksu and Valkotukka who came to visit and never left, the red gnomes, the reindeer, the snow people, the elves, and all the others that inhabit that world will continue on, as they always have: the presents, the shortages, the mishaps, the miscommunications, the warfare, the parties, the joys, the fears. But the children are simply too old. They are no longer interested. The Letters From Father Christmas cease because the letters from John, Michael, Chris, and Priscilla have ceased. 

What a wonderful gift that his children and descendants preserved the letters, envelopes, and drawings and published them for the rest of us to delight in.