Father Christmas

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[email protected]. Please note, it may not be possible to delete your data prior to your booking You can’t just add a character halfway through a story” said a friend of the family when I showed them one of my first story attempts as a child. I had studiously traced a spread from Briggs’s Fungus the Bogeyman and was trying to insert my own words to accompany his brilliant illustrations. The comment from the family friend has stayed with me as an unintended guide to writing, to keep the audience in the know, to lead them by the hand. We retain your data so we may ensure your booking data is available at the Grotto on the day of your visit and

So much appealed about his work and made me feel – half a generation after it was written – that I’d found something unfamiliar and uniquely genuine and true. He had a drive to tell stories that allowed the reader to inhabit the real world more profoundly and reflectively than merely living in it allowed.John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is best known for his high fantasy series The Lord of the Rings and the pre-cursor, The Hobbit, as well as being one of the foremost respected professors on Anglo-Saxon Britain, but behind closed doors he was a wonderful father and a tremendous family man. He had four children, John, Michael, Christopher and Priscilla, and with every passing year they would receive hand-written and illustrated replies from Father Christmas, detailing all of his escapades up in the North Pole. Once you have had your magical personal encounter with Father Christmas, you can discover all the other great experiences on the farm at your own leisure Meet dragons and giants, goddesses and kings in these tales, which bring to life the ancient myths and legends of the British landscape. Sail with Trojans, ride Scottish stags and watch Stonehenge rise. As a very young child, I disliked the tightly-sewn, “happily ever after” endings of many children’s books, so when I was introduced to Raymond Briggs as a five-year-old, I was delighted. I pored over the illustrations of The Snowman while waiting in a doctor’s surgery and announced at the end: “Well, that’s life isn’t it!” Inside though, I was both bereft and curious. Even though Christmas has become so commercial and not many kids know the true meaning of Christmas, I‘ve always loved the magic of believing in Santa Claus or St. Nicholas or Father Christmas or the other names he’s known as throughout the world. I got to wondering this year whether or not the young children in my life, my two youngest grandchildren and four of my great nephews still believed. Their mothers said they do. I hope so, for one more year at least.

Each letter was hand-written by Tolkien in a shaky script to denote Father Christmas's advanced years, but his drawings were utterly superb. Every year, Father Christmas would try and sort out all the world's presents, but Polar Bear and his friends would upset everything whilst having an enormous amount of fun. As the years went by, more and more characters were added and a whole race of Goblins was brought in to wage war against the beautiful splendour of Father Christmas.

Santa’s Grotto Experience 2023

You are welcome to bring your own camera to take photos of your special memories. Please note that any photos can only be for personal use and not commercial use. No filming is allowed inside The Santa’s Grotto. There will also be an opportunity to buy additional photos from our photo booth. I love this because it prompted "Father Christmas" to write similar letters to my own child over several years and because it kindled the flames of Tolkien fandom in my child, and thus, albeit to a lesser extent, me.

Briggs’s books are a reminder that good storytelling really matters, and engaging young people with stories really matters. I think great children’s books transcend the genre. They’re just great books, full stop, to be enjoyed by everyone. We never forget the first book we read that really grabs us, and we never forget the way that it made us feel. And I think for a lot of people, that book was one of Raymond Briggs’s. Each visit is tailor-made to fit your requirements, whether delivering your presents, turning on the Christmas tree lights, or reading your children their favourite Christmas story.After The Snowman, I moved on to Father Christmas, which brought me so much laughter and joy, and then When the Wind Blows, which is astonishing. The story of Jim and Hilda, wonderful characters living through nuclear war, hit me so brutally, as all his work did. J.R.R. TOLKIEN (1892-1973) is the creator of Middle-earth and author of such classic extraordinary works of fiction as 'The Hobbit', 'The Lord of the Rings', and 'The Silmarillion.' His books have been translated into more than fifty languages and have sold many millions of copies worldwide.