The Good King
And The Mantle Of Father Christmas
(This is a short one. After all, it’s Christmas.)
The other day I found myself in the the Cascade mountains, in the little Christmas village of Leavenworth, WA, inside the small Christmas shop on main street, staring at the little porcelain Christmas villages in the back of the store.
I must confess, I do this often. I enjoy the aura of faux nostalgia these village scenes carry; calling out to me from a time and a place where a local Christmas was possible - when all the wonders in the world would be found in the corner toy store, where everyone came to the square for the lighting of the town tree, where neighbors reconciled by Christmas morning and where Christmas miracles always seemed most likely.
A place like this might never have existed in fact, but the whole Christmas aesthetic, and our most popular and enduring Christmas movies and songs like to pretend it did; in order to place us in the middle of some Christmas scene we can’t actually experience but can only feel. And so, year after year, we perform the ritual “rain dance” of Christmas greatest hits, hoping we can summon that old feeling back to us.
In short, we’ve given up trying to recreate the shared meaning of Christmas, and resign ourselves only to purchasing it.
A Christmas Worth Mimicking
Last Christmas, my family gave me a copy of JRR Tolkien’s “The Father Christmas Letters”. A book containing the illustrated letters Tolkien wrote to his own children every year, not as himself but as Father Christmas. Truth be told, I’ve read better books and the stories and the illustrations aren’t of some stunning quality.
Yet, it’s existence is incredibly inspiring. You can imagine the Tolkien Family Christmas being a little different than the typical modern one. First, Tolkien sitting at his desk, coming up with tales of North Pole adventures and “postmarking” the letter from Father Christmas. Then you can imagine the children receiving the letter in the mail and excitedly pouring over the illustrations of Polar Bear accidents and goblin attacks.
There is no nostalgia here, no checklist of greatest hits to run down. Instead of summoning the ghost of Christmas Past, as we annually do, the Tolkien kids could revel with the ghost of Christmas Present, their very own father. What a privilege!
In most Christmas Carol adaptations, the ghost of Christmas Present looks like the 19th century conception of Santa Claus/Father Christmas. A man both wise and jolly, with a crown of holly; a generous Lord who showers you with gifts and presides over bounteous Christmas feasts.
The archetype of a generous, take-charge Father Christmas is also found in the carol "Good King Wenceslas”.
“Hither, page, and stand by me, if you know it, telling,
Yonder peasant, who is he? Where and what his dwelling?”“Sire, he lives a good league hence, underneath the mountain,
Right against the forest fence, by Saint Agnes’ fountain.”“Bring me food and bring me wine, bring me pine logs hither,
You and I will see him dine, when we bear them thither.”Page and monarch, forth they went, forth they went together,
Through the cold wind’s wild lament and the bitter weather.“Sire, the night is darker now, and the wind blows stronger,
Fails my heart, I know not how; I can go no longer.”“Mark my footsteps, my good page, tread now in them boldly,
You shall find the winter’s rage freeze your blood less coldly.”In his master’s steps he trod, where the snow lay dinted;
Heat was in the very sod which the saint had printed.”
By comparison, our modern role of “Father Online Shopping” has no saintly mantle at all. Our nostalgic, consumer Christmas ask very little of us as men. Watching Home Alone with the ghost of Christmas Past for the 35th time is fine, fun even. But there are bigger games to play, taller tales to tell, richer songs to sing, parties to preside over, peasants to serve and pages (and sons) to lead out into a cold winter’s night. This is the job of a Father Christmas. It’s your job and my job.
The crown of holly is not for the feint of heart.
When Tolkien wrote his Father Christmas letters, he was not an accomplished author, he was just another dad. Though he was a devout Catholic, his letters didn’t have any deep theological significance or overt Sunday School lessons; they were just fun things he created for his family; simple, yet deliberate works which fulfilled his masculine role as leader, provider and presider in his own home.
It’s not enough for us to base our Christmas tradition on nostalgia, and things we can only experience vicariously. Father Christmases of today are the Good, Benevolent, Creative, Jolly, Wise and Generous Kings who make every Christmas of which they are a part a real experience.
Merry Christmas!
Build The Village is the premier publication for men who desire to lead in their work, home and community.