Chameleon Magazine

Few people know that Father Christmas does not spend his summers at the North Pole. The ice is too bright, the elves too restless, and the reindeer insist on practicing aerobatics at dawn. One particularly warm June, he longed for quiet. And so, answering a centuries-old invitation, he traveled to the one place where peace was carved into the stone of silence: the home of the Man in the Moon.

The Moon’s face, as seen from Earth, is only the front porch. Santa knew the true entrance lay through a narrow fissure near the Tycho crater—an opening so thin that only moonlight and magic could slip through. Down he went, beard glowing faintly in the dimness, until the walls fell away and he entered a vast subterranean world.

The Man in the Moon greeted him with a lantern made from frozen starlight.

“You’ve arrived just in time,” he said. “The city is waking.”

He spoke of the Hollow Halls, a labyrinth woven long ago by ancient lunar artisans—chambers shaped like hexagons, towers that grew downward like stalactites, corridors aligned with forgotten constellations. Each summer, when Earth’s tilt sent warmth drifting moonward, the halls resonated with a soft hum, as though remembering their builders.

Father Christmas, though accustomed to miracles, was humbled. The air inside the Moon stirred gently, whispering with the faintest echo of footsteps from ages past. The Man in the Moon led him to a circular plaza of polished stone. When Santa stepped onto it, the floor brightened beneath his boots, illuminating patterns that danced like snowfall.

“What were these people like?” Santa asked.

“They were dream-makers,” the Man in the Moon replied. “They shaped hope into architecture, wonder into geometry. They left before your world learned to walk upright. But they built this place for any traveler who still believes impossible things are invitations, not warnings.”

Santa spent the whole summer there—napping in the glow of lunar lantern trees, sipping comet-tea brewed in low gravity, listening to the quiet music of ancient craftsmanship. For once, he didn’t think of lists or chimneys or last-minute wishes. He simply rested, wrapped in the gentle hum of the Moon’s forgotten city.

When it came time to return home, the Man in the Moon placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Remember what they taught us,” he said. “Great civilizations may vanish, but the gifts they leave behind endure.”

Father Christmas nodded, knowing he carried a new kind of treasure back to Earth: the reminder that even in places colder than winter, wonder is alive beneath the surface.

“Hidden worlds awaken only for those who travel with curiosity instead of certainty.”