I am so glad you did not forget to write to me again this year. The number of children who keep up with me seems to be getting smaller. I expect it is because of this horrible war, and 'that when it is over things will improve again, and I shall be as busy as ever. But at present so terribly many people have lost their homes, or have left them; half the world seems in the wrong place! And even up here we have been having troubles. I don't mean only with my stores; of course they are getting low. They were already last year, and I have not been able to fill them up, so that I have now to send what I can, instead of what is asked for. But worse than that has happened.
I expect you remember that some years ago we had trouble with the Goblins, and we thought we had settled it. Well it broke out again this autumn, worse than it has been for centuries. We have had several battles, and for a while my house was besieged. In November it began to look likely that it would be captured, and all my goods, and that Christmas stockings would remain empty all over the world. Would not that have been a calamity? It has not happened - and that is largely due to the efforts of Polar Bear - but it was not until the beginning of this month that I was able to send out any messengers! I expect the Goblins thought that with so much war going on this was a fine chance to recapture the North. They must have been preparing for some years; and they made a huge new tunnel which had an outlet many miles away. It was early in October that they suddenly came out in thousands. Polar Bear says there were at least a million, but that is his favourite big number. Anyway he was still fast asleep at the time, and I was rather drowsy myself.
The weather was rather warm for the time of the year, and Christmas seemed far away. There were only one or two Elves about the place; and of course Paksu and Valkotukka (also fast asleep). Luckily Goblins cannot help yelling and beating on drums when they mean to fight; so we all woke up in time, and got the gates and doors barred and the windows shuttered. Polar Bear got on the roof and fired rockets into the Goblin hosts as they poured up the long reindeer-drive; but that did not stop them for long. We were soon surrounded. I have not time to tell you all the story. I had to blow three blasts on the great Horn (Windbeam). It hangs over the fire-place in the hall, and if I have not told you about it before it is because I have not had to blow it for over four hundred years. Its sound carries as far as the North Wind blows. All the same, it was three whole days before help came: Snow-boys, Polar Bears, and hundreds and hundreds of Elves. They came up behind the Goblins; and Polar Bear (really awake this time) rushed out with a blazing branch off the fire in each paw. He must have killed dozens of Goblins (he says a million). But there was a big battle down in the plain near the North Pole in November, in which the Goblins brought hundreds of new companies out of their tunnels. We were driven back to the Cliff, and it was not until Polar Bear and a party of his younger relatives crept out by night, and blew up the entrance to the new tunnels with nearly 100 Ibs. of gunpowder, that we got the better of them - for the present. But bang went all the stuff for making fireworks and crackers (the cracking part) for some years. The North Pole cracked and fell over (for the second time) and we have not yet had time to mend it. Polar Bear is rather a hero (I hope he does not think so himself). But of course he is a very MAGICAL animal really, and Goblins can't do much to him, when he is awake and angry. I have seen their arrows bouncing off him and breaking.
Well, that will give you some idea of events, and you will understand why I have not had time to draw a picture this year - rather a pity, because there have been such exciting things to draw - and why I have not been able to collect the usual things for you, or even the very few that you asked for. . .
I suppose after this year you will not be hanging your stocking any more. I shall have to say 'goodbye',, more or less: I "mean, I shall not forget you. We always keep the names of our old friends, and their letters; and later on we hope to come back when they are grown up and have houses of their own and children...
