He passed a large skating rink and a children’s train track. When he wandered under an arch, Guy discovered a Christmas Market. His inner child gasped with delight.
Rows and rows of wooden market booths had been set up to create lanes.
At last distracted from visions of doom and gloom, he watched a gigantic nutcracker swallow a continually rotating nut.
A larger-than-life music box twirled on a roof top, the ballerina and her dancing bear partner going ’round and ’round. Real fir boughs and even little trees bedecked the stands.
The roofs were wrapped in shiny paper with tinsel ribbons and bows that transformed them into oversized gifts. Big Saint Nicholases drove twinkly sleighs pulled by reindeer whose heads bobbed.
He discovered a large fountain, turned off for the winter and surrounded by German food booths. Candles burned everywhere.
Guy looked at their pale flames and shivered. Flames, like those of a crash site….
He took a deep breath, and all at once the day smelled of almonds roasting in sugar. Customers laughed and chatted, indifferent to the cold. A couple stood in the frigid air and shared strawberries dipped in chocolate. The girl nibbled from the skewer her boyfriend held. Men and women stood at little tables with beers, and some people cupped steaming mugs.
NOTES: Copyright © 2014 Jadi Campbell. From my chapter “What A Guy” in Tsunami Cowboys. Available online at amazon.com. This link will get you there. Give the gift of literature this Christmas!
Photo Copyright © 2016 Jadi Campbell.
Las fotos son geniales.
¡Muchas gracias!
Marvelous! Some day I will go!
I took these photos strolling through the Stuttgarter Weihnachtsmarkt, but if you go you’ll be spoiled for choice for wonderful Christmas Markets.