his cell, gesturing toward the front door with a nod of his head. He's questioning the warehouse manager over a delay in processing a shipment that's put us two days behind schedule in shipping to retailers.
Nick is silent while he listens to whatever he's being told before he finally interrupts with, "Santa doesn't deliver on December twenty-sixth and neither do we. Fix it." Then he hangs up, dropping the phone into his pocket with one hand while hailing a cab with the other.
"Hauptmarkt," he tells the driver after we've both slid into the backseat.
Then there are several minutes of silence in which Nick tugs the phone out of his pocket to tap out an email with rapid, aggressive keystrokes and I watch the scenery pass, still unsure where we're headed.
"Everything okay?" I finally venture when the flurry of typing has stopped and a brief, irritated exhale leaves his lungs. Outside it’s dark, but the city is beyond romantic with its abundance of Christmas lighting. Strands of sparkly lights strung across the road. Lengths of evergreen strung over doors. Snow has settled into the valleys of the peaked roofs and magic is heavy in the air.
"It will be. The warehouse is over capacity and behind schedule. We're going to have to make some changes."
Before I can ask what that means the cab comes to a stop and Nick is passing Euro notes to the driver, door already open. By the time I slide out from the cab behind him my eyes are as round as two sugar cookies. Spread before us is the most magical Christmas market I've ever seen in my life. Actually, it's the only one I've ever seen in my life because we don't have a Christmas market in Reindeer Falls.
We're in the central square of Nuremberg's old town, a centuries-old church anchoring the space on one end and rows upon rows of stalls spread out ahead of us, each topped by red and white striped awnings. Light-wrapped garlands dangle between windows on the surrounding buildings. Mini-sparkle lights seem to drip from every available surface and the smell of everything wonderful hangs in the air. Roasting nuts, smoked sausages, and joy. It smells like Christmas.
But we can't possibly be here for this. I keep my feet firmly attached to the pavement as I glance around for whichever restaurant we must be headed to, thinking there must have been a business dinner added to tonight’s agenda. I bite my lip and tear my wistful expression away from the market, looking toward Nick as he takes my hand.
"I can't let you leave Nuremberg without experiencing the Christmas market."
"Yessss," I breathe out in one happy word. Nick laughs and the sound makes me warm all over. There's a brief moment in which I think he's going to continue holding my hand, until he looks down at my hand in his and shakes his head briefly, dropping my hand.
"Come on." He nods toward the market, a smile still tugging at his lips. "We'll eat Nuremberg sausages for dinner and drink mulled wine like locals."
I refrain from doing a childish twirl and head for the closest row of brightly lit stalls. I can't stop the giant smile from covering my face and I don't even try. There's so much to see I can hardly focus. Christmas tree ornaments and funny little figurines made from prunes. Nick tells me it's a market tradition and as we browse I see there are an endless variety of them. Prune scarecrows and prune bakers, prune couples kissing and prune doctors, even a prune Santa.
"The legend is, if you keep a prune man in your house money and happiness stay too."
Nick leans in to murmur the words close to my ear and I laugh, but a shiver runs down my spine and beneath my coat my skin prickles in awareness. Which is ridiculous, he's not even whispering words of seduction for crying out loud. The words ‘prune’ and ‘man’ in the same sentence are surely not a seduction.
I step back half a foot, but I buy a prune Santa Claus all the same. I'll find a place for him with my collection of Santas because of course I have a collection of Santas. It's got nothing to do with wanting a souvenir of this evening.
"You'll probably want to meet the Christkind," Nick mentions when we wander into a section of the market geared towards children. There's a merry-go-round that would melt the heart of the worst holiday skeptic