Disclaimer: Christmas is a gift given to the whole world, and Narnia has become the same. I can scarcely claim something owned by the world, can I?
Beta'd by trustingHim17, and Merry Christmas to all!
A New World
(How does Father Christmas know where and who to visit?)
OOOOO
Have you ever been to the North Pole, to Father Christmas' house? Oh, Grandchild, it's a wonderful place. It's full of wonderful people and wonderful things, with white pillars holding up the roof of the basement, all wrapped in circling red ribbons till they look like candy-canes, and, one year, after a bad snowstorm, when the basement, well, the whole house, had to be rebuilt, the giggling elves (not like Tolkien's elves at all, but still a treat to meet) painted the entire ceiling to look like a summer field held up by candy canes. Somehow Father Christmas made it smell like peppermint and lavender mixed, and a breeze from the fans below blows through sometimes. Mrs. Claus goes down there when she's worn out.
Yes, that's where they make all the good and lovely things. They love to sing, down in the basement, but they love it more when a human joins them, for their voices are little high, piping things, and they say a human voice, even the voice of a little girl, sings lower than their voices can reach. They sing in time to their hammers clinking, their paintbrushes swishing, or their saws cutting. They make the most marvelous things.
But there was one thing, my dear, that was my favorite. One thing, because my godfather, C.S. Lewis, managed some magic of his own that reached all the way to the North Pole.
Father Christmas had - or rather has, since there's no reason he would have lost it (he's very careful, unlike some careless children I know) - a magical map. He has many magical things, but there is one that is unrolled every year the day after the New Year. It is a very large map. It covers the floor of the entire room, and is dotted with planets. Anytime Father Christmas bends down and touches one, that one grows large enough to fill the entire parchment, my dear. I saw him do it. He touched Earth, since that's where I was from, and it grew and grew and grew, and one side of it was dark, and the other side as lifelike as you please. When he wants it to, the planet obligingly turns so he can view any part of it he wants. He uses the map to count the children he'll be visiting, you see, and sometimes, if there's a child where he doesn't know what they want yet, or if he has to figure out what an adult wants for them, he does something very special. He reaches forward, bent over his large, red-clothed stomach, and presses a continent with his thumb. It grows bigger, and bigger, and he reaches forward again and presses a city, then a street, then a house, and then he sits back in his rocker and watches, studying people. Why? Because he has to know them to give them good gifts, you see. And he uses the map every Christmas morning, with the biggest smile on his face (Mrs. Claus told me), to watch some of the children play with their new Christmas toys. He enjoys seeing others have fun. Yes, just like me, my child.
But this particular year, when I visited, he was all business. Yes, children, even Father Christmas must deal with business sometimes. He was making sure he remembered each child for the coming Christmas. I don't believe he's forgotten one yet. But still he makes his list, and he checks it twice, every single year. At the moment of this story, he was still working through the first check.
And then he bent over the map, frowning in concentration. He looked at his list. He looked back at the map. He adjusted his glasses and peered more closely. He really thought—ah, he found it. A new planet on his map.
"My dear!" he called to his wife, while I watched him straighten up, beaming. "We have a new world to visit!" He stooped closer, eyeglass nearly touching the tiny print. "I do believe it's called Narnia."
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Response to Anonymousme: I'm not sure that story of the unhappy faun is one I'd like to read - I've lost enough heartbreaking stories no longer appeal to me. But thank you for offering to look it up. I would actually surmise that part of the family being turned to stone might be more common, because I'm guessing not the entire family went to fight, and a lot of the statues in her courtyard would have been from the battle against her that Giant Rumblebuffin was a part of. You know, I don't think I've ever read a fanfiction of that attack, have you?
