Before he could respond to Noelle's question about his family mythos, an alarm on Nick's wrist sounded. He checked his Apple watch. "Ten to two already? If you want to see how the magic happens," he said to her with a wink before continuing, "then we need to go now."

Astounded by the play's contents—not to mention how "i" technology was even taking over running Christmas—Noelle nodded. She definitely wanted to see how the magic happened.

Taking her by the hand, Nick led her to a spiral staircase going down. She followed him at least three levels below ground where they were met with a beaten up, wooden door. After pulling a large, rusty key out of his back pocket, Nick unlocked the door and pushed it open.

"Some things we still do old school," he said, seeing Noelle's surprise. He wasn't wrong. The mix of traditional and modern was giving her virtual whiplash.

The door led to a corridor. Carved out of bedrock, it was wide enough for two people, but barely tall enough to fit a grown adult without stooping. Electric lanterns hung every ten or so feet to light the way. The end was so far down that Noelle couldn't make it out.

"Come. This is a shortcut we've been using for centuries. There's nothing down here that can hurt you," Nick said, sensing her reluctance as he gently pulled her along.

"Does that imply there's something up there that can hurt me?" she asked, only half jokingly. The dark, vengeful brother from the play haunted her consciousness still.

Nick stopped abruptly and faced her. "The world is full of both good and bad. We can only control our own actions, but it never hurts to lead by example," he said like a bad philosopher.

She frowned. "That didn't really answer my question."

"I know," he admitted with a sigh, looking almost helpless. Before he could add anything else, his watch's alarm went off again. "Oh, shoot. We're going to be late."

Noelle had to accept temporary disappointment as they resumed their harried trek underground. The tunnel was practically a straight shot from Nick's house to—as Noelle soon found out—the concert hall. Or more precisely, the Santa Claus mission control in the basement of the concert hall.

Emerging from a door in the rear of the room, they immediately found themselves surrounded by organized chaos. At least two-dozen people wearing headsets and sitting at flat screen monitors simultaneously reviewed maps, timetables, and inventory lists while conversing with someone else on the other end of the connection. A digital clock was ticking down the minutes and seconds in bright red LED numbers. It currently read 1:37. And the large screens on the front wall had a digital rendering of the globe along with an international weather report as yesterday, but the third now showed the interior of the reindeer barn. All the stalls appeared empty except for one at the head.

"Petteri," Noelle whispered the name in admiration, remembering her encounter with the majestic animal the day before. But unlike then, the old reindeer was now obviously restless.

Raising and lowering his front right leg, he tapped on the ground as if signaling his readiness. His nostrils also flared, sending clouds of warm air above his antlers as a gray bearded tonttu approached him. In three small hops worthy of a parkour enthusiast, the gnome Noelle thought to be Tor effortlessly bounced over and off the stall's gate and landed on Petteri's bare back. Another tonttu stood on a third brother's shoulders to unlatch the gate, letting him out. The feed then changed angles, showing the open barn doors. Outside in the snow, the thirteen other reindeer had already been tethered in front of a sleigh.

Noelle recognized it immediately. It was the exact same sleigh Nick had been driving when they met a few days earlier. She'd taken it to the Aurora Inn that first afternoon.

She'd ridden in freaking Santa Claus's sleigh!

As she willed her breathing to steady from the excitement, the tonttu strapped Petteri into the lead spot before a tall man in a thick coat walked around the vehicle, examining its sturdiness. Contrary to popular belief, Sinter Klaas—dressed to deliver gifts to children around the globe—looked nothing like a department store Santa.

There was no cherry red velvet pants and jacket, no black boots and gloves. And there certainly was no floppy hat with a big, white tuft at its tip. Instead, the physical embodiment of Per Noël, Father Christmas, and Saint Nicholas wore a thick, sheepskin robe with the wool lining the inside and the exterior, supple leather embroidered with rich threads of gold and silver. The ornate designs took motifs from nature—trees and mountains, snowflakes and sunshine, stars and the moon—to tell a story that few people would truly ever know. Sinter's boots, gloves, and hat were all of similar furs made to keep out the cold rather than strive for style, yet the entire outfit gave off an air of authority.

"Is . . . is he about to set off for his Christmas Eve journey?" Noelle asked, as Nick's father climbed onto the front bench of the sleigh and adjusted the reins.

Nick looked at his watch. "It's just about midnight in Christchurch, which is the first destination, so yes," he said.

"But I thought you told me that things work differently now and you mainly just manage delivery for things that parents buy. Isn't that what all of your computer stuff is for?" Noelle asked right before a set of bright lights placed in a circle around the sleigh turned on. "Oh. What's going on? What are those for?"

Nick took her hand and nodded toward the clock that was now counting down from ten seconds. "You'll see."

Nine. Eight. Nothing changed. Six. Five. The reindeer began anxiously stomping. Three. Two. The lights became blindingly bright, washing the whole screen into whiteness. Zero.

The spotlights lights went out, and it took Noelle's eyes a second to readjust. After the yellow clouds cleared from her vision, she blinked in confusion at the empty plot of snow in the middle of the screen.

"Where . . . where did they go?" she asked. There was no running start or any hovering. It was as if Nick's dad, the sleigh, and the fourteen reindeer had all just vanished.

Nick pointed to the satellite image of the Southern Hemisphere. "New Zealand. And to answer your question about why: dad is a sucker for tradition. Even though he doesn't deliver every present any more, he thinks it's important to follow the original method. So one night a year he still makes the same trek that he did a millennium ago."

"But they just all disappeared," Noelle said, still baffled by what she'd seen.

Nick laughed. "Well, okay. That part's new. Teleporting to the first place that experiences Christmas is just an extension of the original magic, but it took a little tinkering with the technology to perfect," he said. "It saves dad a few hours, though, and he's not getting any younger."

"What do you mean? There's a chance that Santa will one day be too old to make his Christmas Eve runs? That he's going to retire or something?" Noelle asked jokingly as she remembered the bit about immortality falling upon anyone within the city, but Nick gently grabbed her elbow and led her out of the others' earshot.

"Not immediately, no," he said. "But my parents chose to leave Keskitalvi to be able to have and then raise me, so it's just a matter of time before they'd want to take the next step."

Noelle was baffled by what that would involve. "Like what? Move to Florida and play shuffleboard?" she asked with a snicker. Somehow she couldn't imagine the dashing Sinter—or the badass Fanny, for that matter—pushing pucks around a game board while sipping margaritas.

Nick smiled, but kept his voice to a whisper. "Of course not. But I think eventually dad would like to pass on running Christmas to me. Officially, that is, since I manage most of the work already," he said.

"Hmm. So you're the heir to Christmas," Noelle said, not quite able to imagine the young, handsome man in front of her in the role of a pelt coat wearing world-traveler who answers kids' wishes for the latest toys. Those were definitely some big shoes—er boots—to fill. "What if you didn't want the job? Would that mean Christmas would forever be cancelled?"

A loud gasp rang through the room as everyone suddenly stopped what they were doing and turned toward Nick and Noelle. She must have said the words Christmas and cancelled too loud, prompting a mini panic among the control room staff.

"No worries everybody. False alarm. Please, get back to your tasks," Nick said, waving his hands apologetically.

When he turned his attention back to her, Noelle cringed. "I'm so, so sorry. I didn't mean to—"

He cut her off with a kiss. "It's fine. I don't know why they would overreact like that. Dad's just a figurehead, and this place practically runs itself already. As if Christmas could actually ever be cancelled," he said with a laugh before kissing Noelle once more.

This was my #NaNoWriMo2019 project, but because November is so hectic (seriously, who thought it would be a good idea to have NaNo this month?!) this story is spilling into December. No worries, since it's Christmas themed and it will definitely be finished before the end of the month. While I absolutely love all of my silent readers, I would LOVE to get your encouragement while writing this story. So please, please, please add it to your libraries, vote on the chapters (I'm striving for daily updates once again!) and leave me comments. <3