December 2020 reading: ★★★★☆ I wanted to read this again after tomte came up in another book I was reading. This time, knowing more about tomte as a Nordic folk figure, I definitely found more pleasure in the story but a little background in the book itself would have helped. Also, I found it strange that the tomte's words are sometimes set differently from the rest of the text and sometimes not- a distracting design issue.

January 2019 reading: ★★★☆☆ The setting and illustrations are charming but what's the point of the story?