Nutcrackers
A Nutcracker-Fueled Frolic of Festive Musings
To be clear: This is not a post about squirrels, chipmunks, skunks, or deer.
They deserve blog posts of their own.
Nope. This isn’t about A nutcracker.
It’s about THE Nutcracker.
Although I couldn’t resist the opportunity to insert a cute squirrel image.
The Nutcracker: A History
The Nutcracker has looooong been one of my fave Christmas-y things. But not the ballet. Even as a kid, it was never about the ballet; it’s always been the MUSIC!
Originally written in 1816 by German author E.T.A. Hoffmann (who has the very best 1st three initials ever), The Nutcracker was terrifying.
Like Grimm’s Fairy Tales before Disney got ahold of them.
The Disney-fication of The Nutcracker came from Alexander Dumas, who also famously wrote The Three Musketeers.
Read more about The Nutcracker HERE. You’ll learn more about the history of The Nutcracker, as well as what the E.T.A. in E.T.A. Hoffman stands for.
It’s awesome.
The Nutcracker by E.T.A. HOFFMAN
While the Tchaikovsky ballet version leaned into the G-rated, Dumas version of The Nutcracker, some versions of The Nutcracker book leaned more toward Hoffman’s ghastly hellscape.
The next two Illustrations were done by Vladimir Makovsky in the 1800s. The little girl and the other toys are fine, but daaaaang! that nutcracker is scary.
In a Victorian nightmare kinda way
The last two Illustrations are by Maurice Sendak of Where the Wild Things Are fame.
That nutcracker def has some wild thing vibes.
Maurice Sendak also designed the sets for The Nutcracker Ballet as performed by the Pacific Northwest Ballet from 1983 - 2014).
I saw it twice when we lived in Seattle. It was UH-maze-ing!!
BOTTOM LINE:
Nutcrackers Can Be Scary
Nutcrackers at the Mercantile!
If all this Nutcracker talk has left you with a hankerin’ for a nutcracker of your very own, you’re in luck! We have several in stock at the Mercantile.
Aren’t they fab??!
Flowers ‘n Things carries some seriously impressive nutcrackers, too! Y’all should DEFINITELY stop by and take a look!
Nutty Joke
Just this once, I’ve got a nutty joke rather than my standard corny joke.
Yep. I still got it!
The BEST Christmas Movies
These 3 movies (technically 4) are schmaltzy. And I loathe schmaltzy movies.
I actually hate ANYTHING schmaltzy.
These movies are SUPER predictable. And I hate even moderately predictable movies. Maybe even more than I hate schmaltzy movies.
But during the pandemic, I kinda sorta became a Hallmark/Netflix schmaltzy Christmas movie fan.
In my defense, there wasn’t much to watch. (I’m STILL waiting for the last season of Stranger Things!).
DO NOT read the reviews. They are written by joyless, soulless people with refined taste. They are not our people.
DO NOT subscribe to Netflix for the sole purpose of watching these (or any) holiday movies. There are plenty of places to stream schmaltzy holiday romance movies for free.
DO NOT sit around waiting for a prince from a heretofore unheard of European country (probably somewhere near Genovia) to find you and marry you and make you queen of aforementioned heretofore unheard of European country.
DO suspend your disbelief. Don’t analyze a single thing: Not the plot; not the dialogue; and certainly not the likelihood of any of this being even remotely plausible.
There will rarely be frosty breath, even in the coldest of temperatures.
The characters will claim that it’s impossible to travel due to weather conditions and /or holiday traffic when nothing on-screen substantiates those claims.
Time means absolutely NOTHING in these movies. I’m pretty sure they start counting down the days to Christmas in August. And they say, “It’s almost Christmas” beginning October 1st.
These people can get passports with ZERO lead time.
They all have recently lost a mother or father or are recently divorced or have recently broken up with their significant other.
They have bottomless bank accounts (unless someone in their family squandered the family fortune. In which case I guarantee you their love interest has plenty of cash.
But they are fun and relatively harmless.
Enjoy!
NOTE: These are my Top 3 NEW Christmas movies, and they are available to stream on Netflix.
Nothing will ever replace the beloved It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). Or The Bells of St. Mary’s.
Or A Christmas Story (1983); Christmas Vacation (1989); Home Alone I & II ( 1990, 1992). Home Alone III (1998) is dead to me; .
Of course, Die Hard (1988) is in a class by itself.
PALETTE
I simply could NOT land on a single palette from all of the options derived from this image.
3 was my minimum.
Holiday Hours
Random Nutcracker Images
Because you can never have enough nutcrackers.
A GIF That Keeps On GIFfing
You didn’t think I’d omit Elf from the Christmas movie list, didya??
