291: J.R.R. Tolkien's "Letters from Father Christmas"

Classical Stuff You Should Know

A.J. Hanenburg

Books, Religion & Spirituality, Education, Christianity, Arts

4.5 • 696 Ratings

🗓️ 23 December 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Apparently Tolkien is a fabulous illustrator. Who knew? I've seriously looked up prints, and they are weirdly hard to find . . . but enchanting. Oh, this episode is about Christmas. Merry Christmas!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody and welcome to classical stuff you should know.
0:11.8	We're a podcast about, I don't know, history literature.
0:16.2	Can I, do we just say, I don't know for now on?
0:17.9	Nine years on, we don't know what the podcast is about.
0:20.1	Incredible.
0:20.5	It's mostly books.
0:21.4	Mostly books?
0:22.3	It's probably mostly books.
0:23.1	We contain multitudes.
0:24.2	We do contain multitudes.
0:25.4	Anyway, my name is A.J. Hanenberg, and I'm here with Graham Donaldson.
0:29.3	Hello.
0:29.7	And Thomas Magby.
0:30.8	Hi.
0:31.4	And we are here to talk about a lineage beginning with Christmas and ending with Thomas, whose son Christmas, father, if there's, I am talking about, your son Christmas, if you're talking about Father Christmas, right? Interesting. So I'm talking about my dad who is Father Christmas. Is that how this? Why would, why else would you talk about? You just said the episode was about Father Christmas. About Father Christmas? Yeah. Why else would I call him that other than? That's the best joke I can come up with having woke it up at like 5.45 of the morning. Why do you wake up so early?
0:57.0	I had to finish my episode. That's tough, man. I stayed up late last night instead. I always do my notes in the morning, and so, like, moving to 8 a.m. record times has meant that I... It's tough. Yeah, it messes me up. Mine just emanate from the feelings within in the moment. Yeah. So you're transcendentalist? No, I'm just kidding.
1:12.0	Wait, so you don't prep?
1:13.1	Is that what you just said to us?
1:13.6	Yeah, I don't know. Okay, you just shows up and starts talking.
1:15.1	We're talking about a book.
1:18.7	What would you call it?
1:19.3	It has pages and a cover.
	...

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