Yule Review: The Dark is Rising series By Susan Cooper

  A version of this article appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table #158 (December, 2009).

When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back;
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.

I’ve always found Christmas to be a magical time, and not simply for the presents. In the northern hemisphere, when the days grow shorter and short, the nights longer and darkness holds great sway over the world so that even the days are often dim and grey it is easy to imagine elves slipping between snow covered trees. On cold nights, looking up at bright stars while “the moon on the breast of the new fallen snow gave a luster of midday to objects below” I have felt that magic sink into my soul. Halloween may seem the more natural holiday for fantasy fans with its witches, vampires, and demons, but it is Christmas when the magic seems to come to life.

There are, ironically, very few fantasy novels that really capture that Christmas or Yuletide magic. It is an elusive, fairy air captured by true masters such as Dickens in the classic A Christmas Carol yet tasting oddly flat when addressed by numerous journeyman writers. Yet in The Dark is Rising British author Susan Cooper captures the mystery of the season and melds it with the equally deep and ancient Matter of Britain. The result is an incredible work of fantasy and children’s literature.

Susan Cooper was born in 1935 in Buckinghamshire, England. Her childhood in Britain during World War II had a great influence on her later work, as did her days living in Wales and her degree in English from Oxford. Though she never personally met J.R.R. Tolkien or C.S. Lewis, she attended lectures by both of them, as explained in this excellent bio on her webpage. She worked as a reporter before moving to the Massachusetts, where she became a full time author, primarily of children's stories. She is best known for The Dark is Rising series, for which she won several awards, and her grasp of the underpinnings and function of Fantasy was made most obvious when she presented 'A Catch of the Breath',  the fifth annual J.R.R Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature at Pembroke College, Oxford on 27th April 2017. You can, and should, watch this outstanding talk on YouTube here, it truly is a masterpiece of public speaking. 

The Dark is Rising series comprises five novels: Over Sea, Under Stone, The Dark is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King, and Silver on the Tree. All five are set in England, Cornwall, or Wales and depict episodes in the ongoing cosmic struggle between the Dark and the Light, which is represented by the immortal Old Ones.

Only one character, Merriman Lyon, appears in all five novels. Merriman is strongly implied to be Merlin, and certainly fills the role of mentor and mystical advisor to the five children who are the novels’ main protagonists. Simon, Jane, and Barney Drew are three quite normal children drawn into these quests by their ‘great-uncle’ Merriman. They are in all of the novels save The Dark is Rising and The Grey King. Will Stanton, seventh son of a seventh son, is the protagonist of The Dark is Rising novel itself and appears in all of the novels except Over Sea, Under Stone. Bran Davies is the last of the children, a mysterious albino Welsh boy who appears in only the last two novels, The Grey King and Silver on the Tree.

The novels are complex and handle their rather deep subject matter well. The action is fierce but restrained; the struggles involved rarely extend to mere physical altercations. Over Sea, Under Stone recounts the search for the Grail during the Drew children’s holiday in Cornwall, and the greater matters are only hinted at. The Dark is Rising takes place throughout the Christmas season in the Thames valley of England; Cooper is particularly skilled in using the traditional calendar of Yuletide, Midwinter Day, and the Twelve Days of Christmas to frame her tale. Greenwitch introduces the Drews to Will during a spring holiday in Cornwall during the Greenwitch festival; Jane Drew’s place in the story is more firmly established. The Grey King is perhaps the darkest of the series. Will recuperates in Wales from a sickness and befriends Bran, a shy boy with a tragic family history. And Silver on the Tree brings the series back to Midsummer, as the tale travels across England and Wales and through time, with all five children together for the final quest.

For gamers, the series is full of inspiration. Those who thrilled at the drawing of Herne the Hunter in Deities and Demigods will find his depiction in this series masterful, moreover it provides the game master with a wonderful example of how to use the Wild Hunt in a campaign. The seamless manner in which Cooper weaves history and mythology into the modern world is equally inspiring, and her concept of the Light and the Dark, as well as their eternal struggle, works well for most modern fantasy games. The series inspired me to write and run two different, long-running campaigns. Ars Magica and World of Darkness gamers in particular will find much of value here.

Cooper never stoops to using sex or violence to tell her tale, and so the series remains appropriate for children even while addressing themes of importance. Her writing is sparse yet evocative and her plots are meticulous, nothing feels forced or out of place. She has a great deal to say about the nature of good and evil, yet she never lectures or berates the reader.

If you want poetry, magic, and Arthurian glory set within the modern world, then read this series. It is a true classic.

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

Yule Review: Santa Claus in Fantasy Fiction

 

A version of this article appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table #182 (December, 2011).

Some of the pictures of Father Christmas in our world make him look only funny and jolly. But now that the children actually stood looking at him they didn’t find it quite like that. He was so big, and so glad, and so real, that they all became quite still. They felt very glad, but also very solemn. 

–The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis.

It is once again the merry time of Yule, when the old year dies and the new is born again. It is natural in the northern hemisphere, and especially in the truly northern regions, to associate this time with death and rebirth. It is a special time for myth and religion, a time that seems to attract mythical figures like moth to a flame. Christianity and Mithraism both chose this time to honor the broth of their respective deities, of course, but equally entwined in the season is the legend of the Gift Bringer, a magical figure that rewards children for good behavior and, sometimes, punishes the bad children. 

The gift figure takes many forms throughout Europe, ranging from the Yule Goat of Scandinavia to La Befana, the Old Woman of Italy or the Christkind of Bavaria and Austria. The more common form, however is a bearded old man, usually connected to the Christian Saint Nicholas, called Father Christmas in the British Isles. In America he is Santa Claus, and like many American things he has sprung from his old world origins to spread back out throughout the world. 

Whatever we call him, Santa Claus is a powerfully mythic figure and a seeming natural for fantasy fiction, especially the more mystical, dream-like style of fantasy that follows in Lord Dunsany’s footsteps far from the  fields we know and deep into the realms of Faerie. But as I have mentioned before, Christmas remains a difficult subject, and perhaps its relentless commercialization and the plethora of children’s stories have dissuaded fantasy authors from exploring its fantasy potential. Regardless, there are some very good fantasy tales of Santa, by the greatest writers in the field, and fantasy lovers looking for a fantastical take on Christmas should give them a try.   

Perhaps the earliest fantasy novel to tell a Santa story is L. Frank Baum's excellent The Life and
Adventures of Santa Claus (1902), which I reviewed here. Baum revisited Santa in the short story "A Kidnapped Santa Claus" (1904), a sequel to the origin tale which the five "Daemons of the Caves" (Selfishness, Envy, Hatred, Malice, and Repentance). They try to eliminate Santa and his influence on children first through temptation then when that fails through kidnapping. It's an excellent short parable, with plenty of fodder for gamemasters.

C.S. Lewis, of course, employs Father Christmas, but his momentous appearance in Narnia in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950) was indistinguishable from Santa save in name. His appearance is a pivotal plot point, and the gifts he brings are not mere toys, but essential to the tale - in fact, rather similar to Galadriel's gifts to the Fellowship in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. 

Lewis’ friend J.R.R. Tolkien produced a series of letters from Father Christmas to his children, written over two decades and first published in 1976.  Letters from Father Christmas (revised 1999), notable not only for its engaging prose and episodic tales of life at the North Pole, but also because so many of the motifs and events of Tolkien’s The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and Silmarillion are foreshadowed in the letters.

Of course, as well written as they are, the Santa works of Tolkien, Lewis, and Baum are aimed at children.  Seabury Quinn’s Roads, first published in Weird Tales in 1938 and then in hardback by Arkham House in 1948, is written for adults, asking the question, "What if Conan the Barbarian became Santa Claus?"  The Arkham House novel was well illustrated by Virgil Finlay, and was reprinted in 2005.  It is divided into three parts, ‘The Road to Bethlehem,’ ‘The Road to Calvary,’ and ‘The Long, Long

Road.’ Santa is really "Claudius" an immortal German mercenary who apparently spent centuries slaughtering his way across Europe and the Middle east with his equally immortal wife (a sort of Jewish Red Sonja who begins life as a prostitute in a brothel run by Mary Magdalen). The book positively reeks of anti-Semitism and Anglo-Saxon triumphalism. Quinn is best known for writing occult detective stories, which appeared in the pulp magazines alongside the tales of H.P. Lovecraft, R.E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith. Roads is a religious Christmas tale told through a Sword & Sorcery lens and dripping with 1930s style anti-Semitism that it simply never rises above.

A more modern take comes in Bill Willingham’s long running comic Fables. The comic addressed Santa, in “Jiminy Christmas” (issue #56). Santa is a

‘Fable’ (a living, breathing fairy tale) of course, but he is a particularly powerful one who somehow transcends the other Fables in power and influence. The tale is very adult, all though it portrays a young child’s quest to see Santa during his gift-giving (the explanation provided for Claus’ miraculous Christmas Eve global service is sublime). Like Lewis, Willingham uses Santa as a deus ex machina who passes gifts and knowledge onto the protagonists. It also provides one of the best explanations for how Santa reaches all the houses around the globe in one night. 

Another modern fantasy take is Tony Abbot's Kringle, from 2005. It isn't a traditional Christmas book but rather a Dark Age bildungsroman. Kringle has goblins, elves, magic, all against a back drop of Anglo-Saxon Britain. It's very
good, but it is really only about the start of the tale, how Kringle transform into Santa is barely addressed. But as far as it goes its a great, fun, fantasy tale. It reminds me a great deal of Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword, with the magic world existing alongside but hidden from the barbarity of the Dark Ages.

An even more modern take is The Christmas Chronicles: The Legend of Santa Claus by Tim Slover. It is a pleasant enough tale, but it doesn't quite scratch the Santa and Fantasy itch I've always had. It doesn't catch the magic of the elves and faerie quite right. Magic only enters the tale after Claus and his wife have had a long life as toy givers. Even then, it ignores or changes most of the Christmas legends, (Rudolph gets a different name and totally different story). It lacks that connection to older, deeper mythologies

and is very Christian, aside from an odd digression concerning the Dalai Lama.

For gamemasters looking to add some Christmas spark, Lewis and Willingham’s use of Santa as a gift-giver provides an excellent example. Lewis’ Santa, especially, is similar in role to Tolkien’s Galadriel. Santa can pass on wisdom or knowledge (suitably hidden in rhyme) as well as providing precisely the needed magic weapon or spell. If limited to a one time, special event for a particularly mythic quest, this can work extremely well. Of course, Christmas scenarios can also be drawn from these Santa tales, especially the ongoing war between Santa and the goblins in Tolkien’s The Father Christmas Letters.

Whether you read these tales for fun, for a window into the holiday, or merely to get some ideas for the Christmas Eve role-playing session, I hope you will sing:

Goday, goday, my lord Sire Christëmas, goday!

Goday, Sire Christëmas, our king,

for ev'ry man, both old and ying,

is glad and blithe of your coming;

Goday!

(Anon. Christmas Carol, 1458)

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

Yule Review: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

 A version of this article appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table #170 (December, 2010).

The circle of the world has turned and Yule is come again. In the Northern Hemisphere the light has slowly been declining until the shortest day of the year arrives, and the longest night. Bells tinkle and magic is in the air as so much of the Western World again descends into fantasy and childhood.

It's Christmas Eve! 

Despite the obvious links to fantasy inherent in so many Christmas traditions and tales, the holiday is stubbornly difficult for fantasy writers to handle successfully. Perhaps it is the broad, mass appeal of Christmas stories, its religious overtones, or its economic importance. Whatever the reason, precious few good, modern fantasy genre stories are set during the holidays, and even fewer successfully tackle its themes. The topic is generally abandoned to the authors of children’s book. In the 19^th century, however, it was a common topic for prolific writers whose longevity and popularity have elevated them to icon status today.

L. Frank Baum is a prime example. Because he wrote for children and enjoyed mass appeal, the author of The Wizard of Oz is seldom thought of as a fantasy author, a status he shares with Peter Pan’s J.M. Barrie and Alice in Wonderland’s Lewis Carroll. Of course, all three were fantasy writers who built fantastical imaginary worlds that have directly influenced much modern fantasy, and fantasy roleplaying.

In 1902 Baum wrote The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, which purported to provide Santa’s origin story, creating an elaborate and original mythology that includes traditional creatures such as nymphs, gnomes, and elves as well as original creations such as Ryls and Knooks. The story is set in the Forest of Burzee, described memorably by Baum:

Have you heard of the great Forest of Burzee? Nurse used to sing of it when I was a child. She sang of the big tree-trunks, standing close together, with their roots intertwining below the earth and their branches intertwining above it; of their rough coating of bark and queer, gnarled limbs; of the bushy foliage that roofed the entire forest, save where the sunbeams found a path through which to touch the ground in little spots and to cast weird and curious shadows over the mosses, the lichens and the drifts of dried leaves.

The Forest of Burzee is mighty and grand and awesome to those who steal beneath its shade. Coming from the sunlit meadows into its mazes it seems at first gloomy, then pleasant, and afterward filled with never-ending delights.

Baum carefully describes the ways in which all of the different aspects of the Santa tradition come into being, from reindeer to the first Christmas Tree. It’s all fanciful, and differs significantly from today’s better known traditions: for example Santa’s deer number ten rather than eight and are named Glossie,  Flossie, Racer, Pacer, Fearless, Peerless, Ready, Steady, Feckless, and Speckless, When Baum wrote Christmas traditions were less calcified, and he made full use of this creative freedom. 

Santa’s rise to greatness is not unopposed; a great battle is fought between the evil Awgwas and the immortals, Santa’s patrons. Santa himself is not involved in the battle, Baum is careful to maintain his essential purity and goodness, established firmly when the young Claus, finally exposed to the evils that so many children suffer after his own happy childhood in the Forest of Burzee, embarks upon his great quest to bring children happiness.

The Forest of Burzee, and Santa himself, are connected to Baum’s Oz legendarium in the 1909 novel The Road to Oz (the fifth Oz book), when Santa and his entourage come to Princess Ozma’s birthday party. The Forest, and Santa, appear in some of Baum’s short stories, especially “A Kidnapped Santa Claus” from 1904, a slightly darker tale which featured the Daemons of Selfishness, Envy, Hatred, Malice, and Repentance.

The fairy tale style of Life and Adventures of Santa Claus might put off players and game-masters from seeking inspiration in the tale, but in fact the mythology is a rich vein to mine for gaming nuggets. One limitation of the Christmas mythology, from a gaming perspective, has always been its close ties to the Christian religion. Baum’s tale presents a well reason Santa Claus figure in a mythology divorced from Christianity (though not hostile to it).  A game-master can thus introduce Santa and his accompanying mythology to a pagan campaign world without violating either logic or insulting a real world religion. Indeed, the Immortals make an excellent pantheon that a game-master could drop ready-made into any campaign with a strong element of faerie in its makeup.

Baum wrote the tale for children, but his prose is skillful if minimalist. It is filled with evocative images and memorable if quickly drawn characters. Discerning, open-minded adults should enjoy the pleasant tale and younger truly may truly love it. The novel has been adapted to the screen in two cartoons, and handles the transition well, Baum laved the theater and his writing retained a theatrical sense that encouraged such adaption.

Finally, like most of Baum’s work the tale is in the public domain. It can be found readily enough in various new editions, and is also available as a free download at Project Gutenberg.

The work was adapted into an interesting stop-motion animation holiday special by Rankin-Bass in 1985. It never attained the popularity of the other Rankin-Bass shows, but it has some remarkable images, the Great Ak especially is really dignified and impressive. And Universal produced a cartoon version as well in 2000, but I've never had an opportunity to watch it. 

Any figure as pervasive and influential as Santa Claus can carry the weight of multiple origin tales. Baum’s is a worthy contribution to the legend, and an excellent way to add a hint of mistletoe and holly to your fantasy gaming.

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

Blogging the Nations at War: Christmas

 

This image has inspired me for decades. One of my goals when I joined the Corps was to go to
Mountain Warfare School and learn military skiing, all because of this image from childhood. 
(from The Nations at War, p232).

    Though it has been a few months since I posted on it, I  plan to continue my efforts to blog, chapter  by chapter,  The Nations at War: A Current History by Willis John Abbot, one of the first books to spark my love of history. However, I thought today would be a good day to look at the World War I Christmas Truce.

    This has become fairly well known in recent years, but I think many people would be shocked to discover that tales of the truce were told in news papers and "current affairs" books like this from the nearly the beginning, I believe this tale first appear in the 1915 edition. That is interesting in itself, but equally fascinating is the source of the information. Usually, the tale of the truce is told concerning the well documented British/German truces. But this account purports to be from an American with the French Foreign Legion, and so it discusses the truce in the French sectors. I cannot vouch for the veracity of the account.  

   (from The Nations at War, pp 176-177)

    This writer, Phil Rader by name, a young San Franciscan who had enlisted in the French Foreign Legion, was prolific of graphic sketches of life in the trenches. His description of a Christmas truce and its abrupt end throws a bright light on the psychology of war:

    "For twenty days we had faced that strip of land, forty-five feet wide, between our trench and that of the Germans, that terrible No Man's Land, dotted with dead bodies, crisscrossed by tangled masses of barbed wire. That little strip of land was as wide and as deep and as full of death as the Atlantic Ocean; as uncrossable as the spaces between stars; as terrible as human hate. And the sunshine of the bright Christmas morning fell on it as brightly as if it were a lover's lane or the aisle in some grand cathedral.

    "I don't know how the truce began in other trenches, but in our hole Nadeem began it-—Nadeem, a Turk, who believes that Mohammed and not Christ was the Prophet of God. The sunshine of the morning seemed to get into Nadeem's blood. He was only an enthusiastic boy, always childishly happy, and when we noticed, at the regular morning shooting hour, that the German trenches were silent Nadeem began to make a joke of it. He drew a target on a board, fastened it on a pole, and stuck it above the trench, shouting to the Germans:

"'See how well you can shoot.'

"Within a minute the target had been bulls'-eyed. Nadeem pulled it down, pasted little bits of white paper where shots had struck, and held it up again so that the Germans could see their score. In doing so, Nadeem's head appeared above the trench, and we heard him talking across the No Man's Land. Thoughtlessly I raised my head, too. Other men did the same. We saw hundreds of German heads appearing. Shouts filled the air. What miracle had happened? Men laughed and cheered. There was Christmas light in our eyes and I know there were Christmas tears in mine.

"There were smiles, smiles, smiles, where in days before there had been only rifle-barrels. The terror of No Man's Land fell away. The sounds of happy voices filled the air. We were all unhumanly happy for that one glorious instant—English, Portuguese, Americans, and even Nadeem, the Turk — and savages we had been, cavemen as we were, the awfulness of war had not filled the corners of our hearts where love and Christmas live. I think Nadeem was first to sense what had happened. He suddenly jumped out of the trench and began waving his hands and cheering. The hatred of war had been suddenly withdrawn and it left a vacuum in which we human beings rushed into contact with each other. You felt their handshakes—double handshakes, with both hands—in your heart.

"Nadeem couldn't measure human nature unerringly. He had been the first to feel the holiday spirit of Christmas Day, but, on this day after Christmas, he failed to sense the grimness of war that had fallen over the trenches during the night. Early in the morning he jumped out of the trench and began waving his hands again. John Street, an American, who had been an evangelist in St. Louis, jumped out with him, and began to shout a morning greeting to a German he had made friends with the day before.

"There was a sudden rattle of rifle-fire and Street fell dead, with a bullet through his head. The sun was shining down again on a world gone mad."

    A grim commentary on the war.  

Post-script, 12/16/2022:

 Since I originally posted this I have done a little bit of research on Phil Rader, who turns out to have been an interesting fellow. He might have been a pilot before the war, a Phil Rader was supposedly a mercenary pilot in the Mexican Revolution who participated in the first "dogfight."  He wrote, or had written from his comments, a series of articles, including the selection above, which were published in various newspapers in 1915. This specific account first appearing in March 1915 (see Riverside Daily Press, Volume XXX, Number 74, 27 March 1915). Later he left (deserted?) the Foreign Legion, joined the Royal Flying Corps, and flew for the British, before returning to the United States.  He was killed in June 1918 teaching aerobatics to a student pilot in California. 

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

Christmas Letters, VI

You can see the other Christmas Letters posts here:  I, II, III, IV, & V. 

The Christmas Mice in their Christmas Eve
fashion show.

Our Christmas Eve traditions changed as the Westermeyer Christmas parties changed from Christmas Eve to a different day in December, and eventually ended.  My family began attending Midnight Mass at St Peters each Christmas Eve instead. of course, Christmas morning we opened our presents, always a magical time.

My wife's family had their own Christmas Eve traditions. Her family was much smaller, but the grandparents, children, and grand children gathered at the grandparents house each Christmas Eve.  Bellringer the Elf would dodge grandpa, leaving a garbage bag of presents (usually stuffed animals) for Kelly and her cousin on the porch, announced by a ringing door bell. Later, while listening to Christmas Carols, she and her cousin would cut wrapping paper and ribbons to dress the Christmas Mice. On Christmas Day, the extended family would all come for a roast beef dinner.  

For years, Kelly and I were lucky enough to live the traditions of both our families.  We would go to her grandparents Christmas Eve for the Christmas Mice and Bellringer, then go to Midnight Mass and spend the evening at my parents house We'd celebrate Christmas morning with my family, opening presents around the tree, and then go back to her grandparents for Christmas dinner.

By the time we had our own kids, however, those traditions were also sadly ending. Kel and I worked to combine our traditons for the kids.  On Christmas Eve she and our kids dressed the Mice, and Bellringer brought a bag of garbage, only now it included a letter from Santa Claus (which my kids were never particularly interested in but Santa wrote them anyway - he writes whether anyone reads the letters or not. 😉).  We ate sandwiches with really good deli meats and bread for christmas Eve dinner, like we often had at the Westermeyer christmas parties.When the kids went to bed, Kel and I watched It's a Wonderful Life while we waited to help Santa put the gifts under the tree.  Sometimes my parents were able to come and spend Christmas with us, they usually went to Midnight Mass, and returned in the morning.  I then always fixed a roast beef dinner on Christmas Day, with mashed potatoes, and pies, and dressing.  

Our kids are adults now, but we are trying to keep the traditions alive.  So far, so good, but there are a few changes. The Mice are still decorated and Bellringer still comes, but the kids stayed up later, this year they even watched It's a Wonderful Life.  On Christmas day we have started watching A Christmas Story.  

The next to last letter saw more Bellringer heroics, and more of Frau Perchta and the Goblins. And the reindeer added a post-script, since we had a new dog, Fae. 

🎅Santa’s Workshop  

No. 1 Santa Claus Lane

Christmas Town, The North Pole

Dec 24th, 2013                                                                            

Dearest Ren & Tori,

I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

  Another year on the nice list, I see… though perhaps you could work on doing your chores a bit more cheerfully? They are rarely fun, I know… you should hear Bellringer moan when it is his turn to shovel out the reindeer stalls! But he knows the reindeer deserve to be properly taken care of. But I can see how hard you both work to be good, and I am very proud of you. I know your parents must be as well. 

Sadly we have had another rough year at the North Pole. The elves, polar bears, and reindeer have been working hard all year, as always, but that evil Frau Perchta is still lurking about, spinning her evil plots. You recall Frau Perchta? She is the evil witch who used to follow me on Christmas Eve to punish wicked children, until I caught her punishing good children and banished her. And last year, she joined the goblins and they snuck into the storage caves beneath my castle. Bellringer discovered them, and there was a great battle that drove Perchta and the evil goblins away, but they had stolen many of the toys my elves had made that year.

Frau Perchta took those toys over the summer and worked her evil magics on them. She brought them to life, something a child’s love will often do. But toys loved by a child are good and loving themselves, Frau Perchta’s magics brought the toys alive and filled them with anger, spite, and hatred. 

Bellringer was again our savior! He was out skiing at Halloween night, enjoying the Northern Lights, the stars, and the moon. He saw the dark mass of Perchta’s horde flowing across the icefields towards my castle at the North Pole. The goblins were still with her, of course, but she had added more monstrous creatures – there were great werewolves that the goblins rode upon, and giant ogres Perchta had awakened from centuries of sleeping in deep caves beneath the earth. 

Bellringer sped across the snow and ice to the castle, ringing his bells loudly and sounding the alarm. The elves, polar bears, and Nutcrackers all sprang to the castle walls, and with so much warning, it seemed the battle would be a simple one. Perchta’s savage goblins could not breach the walls, and the Nutcrackers’ muskets knocked goblin after goblin over. Soon the elves were launching Mistletoe Missiles (forcing the Goblins to stop and kiss each other) while cannons fired great fruitcakes into the wolves. All Christmas Town echoed to the sounds of caroling as the goblins, wolves, and ogres were forced back. 

Finally, the battle ended. Poor Bellringer was covered with red welts, he had fought with Frau Perchta herself and she beat him horribly with her willow switch. Finally, she fled as the great Polar Bears came upon her… and she knew she could not face them. 

We were all resting and enjoying some much needed hot cocoa when Belsnickel, Bellinger’s brother, came rushing up from the ice caverns.  The toys that Perchta had enchanted used the battle as a distraction and sneaked into our storerooms. They destroyed many of the new toys, and they infected others with their evil – so that we had to sort through all the good toys to find the bad toys so no child would get something so dangerous. I think we have them all, but we must be extra careful packing the sleigh this year! 

        Sadly, this means that once again, though no child will be forgotten many will not get all they wanted this year. The elves and I have tried so hard… but many children seem to have become infected by Frau Perchta’s greed and naughtiness and they ask for so many toys, more than they could play with. I only hope the love with which the elves and I give shall make them happy.  

        But away with gloom and sadness! Bellringer shall deliver this letter when he preps your home, as always.  Have the Merriest of Christmases and a very Happy New Year!  

                                                        ‘Til next year 

Santa Claus

P.S. We herd u have a dawg… pls keep dawg on leash and tell it not to bark at flying sleighs! 

P.P.S. Don’t ferget the oats!

Rudolph, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner,& Blitzen

Santa stopped sending letters, as he usually does, when the kids reached a certain age.  I understand that Santa started sending letters to my niece after that, I hope she enjoys them. Maybe someday we'll have grand kids who will get garbage bags of toys and letters from Bellringer. 

And this was the final letter Santa sent. 

🎅Santa's Workshop  

No. 1 Santa Claus Lane

Christmas Town, The North Pole

Dec 24th, 2014                                                                            

Dearest Ren & Tori,

I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

  Ren, I understand that you’ve discovered my secret – that I live mostly in the realms of spirit, magic, and imagination. Tori, I understand, has long assumed this. I am sorry this caused you pain, Ren. No one ever wanted that. 

Parents provide much of my magic, I exist because of the great love they have for their children.  Your parents love you both very, very much, of course. And your father has always been especially devoted to me, and I think he always will be. He still believes, and he has always been very enthusiastic about me and all the myths and stories about me. Christmas is a very special time for him, and he always wants it to be special for you as well. But you are both your own people, and do not have to think or act like he does. I bet that is a relief! 

Now the torch passes on to you, it is your turn to help keep the magic alive for younger children, like your cousin and eventually your own kids. I shall greatly miss you both; even we of mist and magic have feelings.

                                             ‘Til you have children of your own, 

             Santa Claus

Christmas Letters, Part V

 

I'm the little guy, seated at the table in front of the bar. 
To the right is the wall hanging with the deer.

You can see the other Christmas Letters posts here:  I, II, III, IV, & VI. 

Christmas Eve is magical, it always has been.  For me, the magic started very early. When I was a very young child my father's family gathered at my grandparents house every Christmas Eve for a family Christmas Party. Oma and Opa Westermeyer brought my father, his older sister and two brothers from Germany in 1950 to Cincinnati. By the time I was born the family was large, there would eventually be twenty grand-children (I am not certain how many great-grandchildren now!).  

The large family made these parties (well described by my Uncle on his blog) especially wonderful for me as a child. They were held in my grandparents basement, which was fully furnished with a bar and a pool table, it seemed large and magical to me as a child, walking down the stairs was like going through a magical portal to Germany, with neat international posters on the walls, and a beautiful decorative rug hanging on the way showing some deer in a forest, that my father had purchased while on leave in Germany. The basement was filled with kids who wanted to play and talk to me - very different from the playground a sort of shy book worm experienced at school! 

Most of the Westermeyer grandchildren
at one of the Christmas parties.

Of course, the drive after added to the magic. We lived in New Richmond,  and my grandparents lived in Mt Healthy, today with the I-275 bridge maybe a 45 minutes drive, but in the 1970s closer to an hour and a half.  Sleepy and happy, driving home through downtown Cincinnati, I created the "Rudolph game" with my sister. Every blinking or moving light in the sky was a Rudolph sighting as he pulled Santa's sleigh on his appointed rounds. We often fell asleep playing, then woke up in our beds Christmas morning. 

Later, the family was so big with grandchildren, and after my grandfather had passed and my grandmother moved, we had to move the party. It was too difficult to get everyone together for Christmas Eve, so we gathered on an evening earlier in the month at the at the Mt Healthy Knights of Columbus Hall. I have many fond memories of these parties as well. I tried to start a "tradition" of an annual pool game between myself and my cousin Mark against his brother Chris and our cousin Nick, but I was by far the worst pool player of the four of us and we lost every year. 😄 I also recall that we saw the movie Breakin' on the screen of the drive-in theater behind the hall one year!

Left to Right: Tante Maria, Aunt Christa,
 and my grandmother, Oma Westermeyer.

But the greatest tradition was when my Tante Maria, my Aunt Christa, and my grandmother would sing Stille Nacht, heilge Nacht for us in German. They had beautiful voices and it was always  beautiful.
Here they are in the early 1980s (I think) (as above, L to R). the family was so big by then, we held the family Christmas party at the Mt Healthy Knights of Columbus hall.

And a picture of the chapel where the carol was originally written in  1818.

In this 2012 Christmas letter, Frau Perchta is at it again, talking with goblins, and possibly the Goblin King. And Rudolph and "magic oats" appear (oatmeal mixed with sugar and glitter, sprinkled on the ground outside for the reindeer each Christmas Eve).   

🎅Santa’s Workshop  

No. 1 Santa Claus Lane

Christmas Town, The North Pole

Dec 24th, 2012

Dearest Ren & Tori,

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

  You both made the nice list again this year! I know it is hard being good, but I can see in my magic snowball how hard you both tried this year.  Your parents must be very proud of you! 

It has been a hard year here at the North Pole. Frau Perchta, the evil witch who used to follow me on Christmas Eve to punish wicked children, is still lurking about. Bellringer has seen her several times while he was inspecting the 🎄Christmas Tree🎄 groves, and sometimes she has been in the company of Goblins! 

That is bad, as the Goblin King likes to steal children. I ordered the elves and polar bears to stay on special alert and the Nutcracker Guard started patrolling. But faithful Bellringer found out what the witch and the goblins were trying to do, of course.

He won’t say what he was doing, I suspect he was trying to find where I had hidden HIS Christmas presents, but Bellringer was down in the ice caves below Christmas Town when he heard some scratching and digging.  He discovered that the Goblins and Perchta were tunneling into my storerooms again!  

        He came and told me at once,  we led the elves, bears, and Nutcrackers down to the storerooms at once! There were goblins everywhere, and a huge battle broke out! Those goblins are vicious and mean, and Frau Perchta is strong; it was a close battle. She slashed us with a great willow switch, it really stung! But the nutcrackers had their muskets, and the polar bears are of course huge and strong, we managed to drive the witch and the goblins from the storeroom. Then I used my magic to seal their tunnel.

        Bellringer has saved Christmas again, but the witch had stolen many, many toys. The elves and I have worked hard to replace those stolen but though no child will be forgotten many will not get all they wanted this year. 

        Poor Frau Perchta. She has never understood the true meaning of Christmas… those toys will never bring her as much joy as she might have gotten by giving them to a child. I worry what she will try next year.

        But enough of her! I am sure you will be having a merry Christmas. My reindeer always love the magic oats you leave for them. Rudolph asks Ren, especially, if he will be certain to leave a special helping this year, we are worried there may be a great storm.

        Bellringer has promised to give you this letter.  I hope you enjoyed it, as well as your presents tomorrow.  Merry Christmas!

‘Til next year 

        Santa Claus



Christmas Letters, Part IV

Our Fontanini set in the center, Bellringer can be seen
on the upper right, and just to his left the
birch wood Advent Calendar.

You can see the other Christmas Letters posts here:  I, II, III, V, & VI.

Today I started one of my favorite personal Christmas traditions, rereading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. It truly is a classic, every year I wonder anew at its insight, clarity, and humor. I prefer, these days, to listen to an audiobook, Jim Dale's reading, available here to download for free.  He gets exactly the right tone and emphasis for Dicken's poetic prose and humor.  

I was reminded tonight of some of my other traditions. Most aspects of Christmas fascinate me, but growing up I especially loved the Nativity scenes, the Advent Wreath, and the Advent calendar.   

As a kid, I asked my mother if I could be the one to set up the Nativity scene each year. We had a very old, special set that belonged to her mother, and had lived through several floods of the Ohio River.  Each year I would set up the scene carefully, placing the animals in their proper places, ect. It's long been obvious to me that this was part of my fascination with toy soldiers. In fact, in college I made it a personal quest to track down and create my own Nativity scene in 25mm scale using roleplaying game figures. It took a few years (oddly, the most difficult part was the sheep!) but eventually I got all the needed pieces. 

My 25mm Nativity scene, built from gaming miniatures. 
It is currently being repainted and the stable redesigned.
Sorry about the bad quality picture, its from the mid-1990s.

My wife's grandfather also loved Nativity sets, he had a Fontanini set (the 5 inch scale figures). Each year, we would buy him a new piece for the set for Christmas.  After he passed, we inherited the set, and have proudly displayed it every year, in the same hand-made stable he built for it. 

I also loved Advent, because of course, it counted down to Christmas.  As an altar boy I enjoyed lighting the candles in the Advent wreath each Sunday, and I loved doing the same at home for Sunday dinner. I thought it was interesting that the wreath's colors were purple and pink, so different from the "standard" Christmas palette of red and green. Sadly, we just don't have any room for an Advent Wreath in our tiny place.  

In the same "counting down" theme I loved Advent calendars. We had a very old, but fragile paper one, each day had a paper door, you opened it revealing a little Christmas seen inside. I really can't explain how it survived as long as it did.  A few years back, my wife and kids surprised me with a more permanent calendar. It is beautiful, wooden, shaped like a Christmas tree with birch bark background and little drawers for each day with a festive picture on it. Each year, we stuff with drawers with candy, and on days when we remember, we take the candies out and eat them. 

Below is the next Christmas letter, featuring Bellringer and Frau Perchta again. 

🎅No. 1 Santa Claus Lane

Christmas Town, The North Pole 

Dec 24th, 2011

Dearest Ren & Tori,

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

  Luckily, you both made the Nice List this year, but Jingle, the head elf in charge of the Nice List, tells me that it was a very, very, very close call! You are two of my favorite children; I would hate to deliver coal to your home next year instead of presents!  I’ve warned you of this before…  I know you will both try very hard, because you are good children! And I have discovered that maybe it is not all your fault!

Do you remember that evil old witch, Frau Perchta, who used to follow me on Christmas Eve to punish wicked children? Long ago I found her secretly punishing good children and banished her from Christmas Town. She has lurked about causing mischief ever since, a couple years ago, she even stole the naughty list, but Bellringer stole it back. 

        Well, she has found another way to cause mischief, a scary way. Bellringer was herding the reindeer on the tundra nearby when he spotted her far off, walking across the tundra. Using his elf-magic he followed her, thinking she must be up to know good. And by Mistletoe she is!

        Frau Perchta lives in a small house now, Bellringer followed her there. It is very ugly and twisted, and surrounded by twisted, evil snowmen she uses as guards. Bellringer carefully crept past them, invisible from his magic, and found Frau Perchta inside stirring a potion in a huge black cauldron, and chanting, “Fair is foul, and foul is fair; Hover through the fog and filthy air; Double, double toil and trouble!” Bellringer realized that Frau Perchta is casting spells to make children act naughty! 

        Bellringer rushed back to Christmas Town to tell me of her plot. It makes me quite sad, but I cannot stop her. Magic cannot really make anyone act naughty; it just makes them angry and makes it easier for them to be naughty. I am Not Allowed by the Laws of Magic to interfere. But I can warn good children like yourself, that when you feel angry, when you feel rage, that is Frau Perchta’s work, she wishes to make you act naughty. Do not give in to her! I know you will.

        Enough gloom! I am sure you will be having a merry Christmas, my reindeer asked me to thank you for the magic oats you leave for them, Rudolph especially says thank you to Ren, he knows how much you love animals!

        Bellringer has promised to give you this letter.  I hope you enjoyed it, as well as your presents tomorrow.  Please do write me, I greatly enjoy your letters! 

‘Til next year 

Santa Claus