Why Santa Keeps a Comb — Behind the striped dressing screen, where peppermint soap made the air tingle, Juniper rubbed Santa’s oval mirror with a square of blue flannel. Read the full story →
Behind the striped dressing screen, where peppermint soap made the air tingle, Juniper rubbed Santa’s oval mirror with a square of blue flannel. She wanted one perfect shine before the sleigh bells rang. The trouble was a milky smudge that kept blooming back, no matter how hard she polished. Then something tapped the glass from the inside. Not a finger. A wing.
A frost-moth, thin as onion skin and bright as a secret, pressed its face to the mirror. “Please,” it whispered, “my sister is trapped in his beard.” Juniper leaned close. Sure enough, among Santa’s snowy curls, a smaller moth flickered, snagged in a loop of whisker and sleepy from the warm gingerbread smell. No one was watching. Santa was humming. Juniper slipped him the honey-gold comb and said, “One gentle stroke, sir.”
The comb slid through with a soft shrrrp, freeing the moth into the mirror’s moon-cool shine. Ever since, Santa combs his beard before every flight, just in case some tiny traveler has curled up there for warmth. If you catch his smile in the glass, keep the secret behind the striped dressing screen.
