1931
Here is my latest
portrait - Father Christmas packing, 1931. If you find that not many of
the things you asked for have come, and not perhaps quite so many as sometimes,
remember that this Christmas all over the world there are a terrible number
of poor and starving people. I (and also my Green Brother) have had to
do some collecting of food and clothes, and toys too, for the children
whose fathers and mothers cannot give them anything, sometimes not even
dinner.
It has gone on being warm up here - not what you 'would call warm, but warm for the North Pole, with very little snow. The North Polar Bear has been lazy and sleepy as a result, and very slow over packing, or any job except eating -he has enjoyed sampling and tasting the food parcels this year (to see if they were fresh and good, he said). But that is not the worst. I should hardly feel it was Christmas if he didn't do something ridiculous. You will never guess what he did this time! I sent him down into one of my cellars - the cracker-hole, we call it - where I keep thousands of boxes of crackers (you would like to see them, rows upon rows, all with their lids off to show the kinds of colours) - well, I wanted twenty boxes and was busy sorting soldiers and farm things so I sent him; and he was so lazy he took Snow-boys (who aren't allowed down there) to help him. They started pulling crackers out of boxes, and he tried to box them (the boys' ears. I mean), and they dodged and he fell over, and let his candle fall right POOF! into my firework-crackers and boxes of sparklers. I could hear the noise and smell the smell in the hall; and when I rushed down I saw nothing but smoke and fizzing stars, and old Polar Bear was rolling over on the floor with sparks sizzling in his coat; he has quite a bare patch burnt on his back. The Snow-boys roared with laughter and then ran away. They said it was a splendid sight, but they won't come to my party on St Stephen's Day; they have had more than their share already.
-This is all
drawn by the North Polar Bear. Don't you think he is getting better? But
the green ink is mine - and he didn't ask for it.
Two of the Polar Bear's nephews have been staying here for some time - Paksu and Valkotukka ('fat' and 'white-hair' they say it means). They are fattummied Polar Cubs and are very funny, boxing one another and rolling about. But another time I shall have them on Boxing Day and not just at packing-time. I fell over them fourteen times a day last week. And Valkotukka swallowed a ball of red string, thinking it was cake, and he got it all wound up inside and had a tangled cough - he couldn't sleep at night, but I thought it rather served him right for putting holly in my bed. It was the same cub that poured all the black ink yesterday into the fire - to make night: it did, and a very smelly smoky one. We lost Paksu all last Wednesday and found him on Thursday morning asleep in a cupboard in the kitchen; he had eaten two whole puddings raw. They seem to be growing up just like their uncle.
>Goodbye now. I shall soon be off on my travels once more. You need not believe any pictures you see of me in aeroplanes or motors. I cannot drive one, and I don't want to; and they are too slow anyway (not to mention smell), they cannot compare with my own reindeer, which I train myself. 'They are all very well this year, and I expect my posts will be in very good time. I have got some new young ones this Christmas from Lapland.
