24 December on the #fantasyadvent: “The Night Before Christmas”, aka “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, illustrated by Douglas Gorsline. But how is this Santa related to one of #Tolkien’s early fairy creatures? THREAD 🧵👇
#ChristmasEve @tolkiensociety.org @uofgfantasy.bsky.social @tolkienguide.com
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23 December on the #fantasyadvent: The Night Before the Night Before #Christmas  by Kes Gray and Claire Powell: Santa is stressed with deadlines and so he forgets the ONE thing he forgets to do every year. But what is it? 🤔🎄🎅🛷 @UofGFantasy #ChristmasEveEve

22 December on the #fantasyadvent: “The Snow Queen”, by Hans Christian Andersen, often published and illustrated as a standalone book. An absolute classic! Art: Vladyslav Yerko, Honor C. Appleton, Edmund Dulac, H.J. Ford ❄️🫅
@uofgfantasy.bsky.social

21 December on the #fantasyadvent: today, on Will Stanton’s birthday, it’s Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising, second in the series of the same title. Art by Laura Carlin, Sarah Coomer, and Keith Robinson. Are you reading it right now?
@uofgfantasy.bsky.social

20 December on the #fantasyadvent: an earlier “true story” of Santa Claus, this time by L. Frank Baum, author of the Oz books (illustr. Mary Cowles Clark). It follows Santa’s story from a foundling at the Forest of Burzee, to the Laughing Valley and old age. @uofgfantasy.bsky.social

19 December on the #fantasyadvent: @matthaig.bsky.social’s A Boy Called Christmas, "the true story of Father Christmas", as per the first line of a story full of snow, elves, adventure, and an 11yo boy called Nikolas who believes in magic! @uofgfantasy.bsky.social

18 December on the #fantasyadvent: #Tolkien wasn’t the only fantasist to send his children 🎅 letters! Here’s Mark Twain’s letter from Santa Claus to his 3yo daughter Susie, first published in My Father, Mark Twain (1931) by Clara Clemens: twainquotes.com/santaclaus.html
@uofgfantasy.bsky.social

17 December on the #fantasyadvent: #Tolkien’s Letters from Father Christmas!

Mini-thread: 🧵🎅🎄

Every year from 1920 to 1942 the Tolkien children received a letter from Father Christmas.

@UofGFantasy @UofGArts @TolkienSociety #TolkienTrewsday #TolkienTuesday

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16 December on the #fantasyadvent: Terry Pratchett’s Father Christmas's Fake Beard collection! Witty, hilarious, but also so very human! Personal favourites: the title story, The Computer Who Wrote to Father Christmas and those 2👇
@uofgfantasy.bsky.social @terrypratchett.bsky.social

15 December on the #fantasyadvent: Beatrix Potter’s The Tailor of Gloucester, in which a host of grateful mice help a poor tailor (who saved them from his cat!) finish a jacket and vest for the Mayor of Gloucester, who is to be married on #Christmas Day! 🐁🎄🧵🪡❄️🐈‍⬛ @uofgfantasy.bsky.social

14 December on the #fantasyadvent: most of the hugely successful Bunny vs Monkey books by @jamiesmart.bsky.social include a (hilarious!) #Christmas episode! My 12yo is getting ready for an online workshop with Jamie Smart today, so this is a special request!
🐰🙊 🎄🎅❄️ @uofgfantasy.bsky.social

13 December on the #fantasyadvent: The 12 Sleighs of Christmas, by Sherri Duskey Rinker and Jane Parker. Santa's sleigh is trashed from its last #Christmas ride, so the elves get into a hilarious competition to design 12 new flying vehicles for Santa to choose from! @uofgfantasy.bsky.social

12 December on the #fantasyadvent: a Dickensian Christmas story and its equally Dickensian source: A Christmas Carol and “The Story of the Goblins who stole a Sexton”, chapter 29 of The Pickwick Papers (gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5...)
Mini-thread:
@uofgfantasy.bsky.social
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11 December on the #fantasyadvent: in Lucy M. Boston’s The Children of Green Knowe young Tolly spends the Christmas holidays in his ancestral home and meets children that lived there centuries before. A beautiful rendering of the ghost story at #Christmas tradition. @uofgfantasy.bsky.social

10 December on the #fantasyadvent is a classic poem that can be viewed via Todorov’s idea of “hesitation” as the locus of the fantastic: Thomas Hardy’s “The Oxen”.
@uofgfantasy.bsky.social

9 December on the #fantasyadvent: Father #Christmas in Narnia!
"I've come at last… She has kept me out for a long time, but I have got in at last. Aslan is on the move. The Witch's magic is weakening."
🎅🎄🦁 ❄️ @uofgfantasy.bsky.social @cslewisdaily.bsky.social

8 December on the #fantasyadvent
This one needs no introduction: Raymond Briggs’s The Snowman. Dreamy, magical, funny, sad.
⛄️ ❄️ 🎄 ⛄️❄️🎄 @uofgfantasy.bsky.social

7 December on the #fantasyadvent: The Dinosaur That Pooped #Christmas by Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter is clearly the “origin” story of this delightfully disgusting series! The dino egg is Santa’s present and since Dino eats Christmas it has to come out the other way! @uofgfantasy.bsky.social

6 December on the #fantasyadvent: Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s Stick Man! A great one to read leading up to #Christmas as the story starts in the spring and ends on Christmas Eve, following the adventures of Stick Man trying to return to his Family Tree! 🎄🎅 @uofgfantasy.bsky.social

5 December on the #fantasyadvent: Chris Van Allsburg's The Polar Express. A beautiful, dreamy #Christmas fantasy, interweaving the idea of the Romantic child with pure Christmas magic! That bell!
🎄🎅 🚂🔔 @uofgfantasy.bsky.social

4 December on the #fantasyadvent: Dr. Seuss’ classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The grinch's heart may be two sizes too small, and he may have tried his best to destroy #Christmas, but it came anyway! "Maybe Christmas" he thought "doesn't come from a store"! @uofgfantasy.bsky.social 🎄

3 December on the #fantasyadvent: Catherine Fisher’s The Clockwork Crow. A Gothic story featuring a feisty Victorian orphan girl, a lost boy, a haunting manor, scary Welsh fairies (the #tylwythteg) and snow, all coming together at Christmas! @uofgfantasy.bsky.social @fireflypress.bsky.social 🐦‍⬛❄️🎄

2 December on the #fantasyadvent: Winter gatherings and celebrations at Brambly Hedge! (Yes, that’s a prime example of miniature fantasy, what my next book is about!)
More on the Brambly Hedge books here: bramblyhedge.com/brambly-hedg...
@UofGFantasy 🎄🐁 🎄🐁🎄🐁

1 Dec on the #fantasyadvent: “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" (1816), by E.T.A. Hoffmann. A Christmas classic!
Full text: archive.org/details/nutc...
LibriVox recording: librivox.org/nutcracker-a...
@uofgfantasy.bsky.social
🎄🐁 🧁