(Editor’s note: DeeDee Wood is the owner of Black Cat Curiosities, an online antiques research and sales venue.)
Christmas and the upcoming holiday season would not be complete without seeing a brightly painted nutcracker soldier, with jaw agape, ready to crack open any variety of nut and do it with a fun method of the soldier taking part in the process.
One flip of the wooden handle, and the mouth of the soldier clamps down on the shell, splintering it into many pieces, revealing the treat within.
What is the origin of such a mechanism, and how did it become associated with Christmas celebrations around the world?
Nutcrackers, in many different forms and types, have been around for as long as people have been cracking open nuts. The Christmas nutcracker, usually recognized as a soldier with bright colors and whimsical expressions, has origins in Germany, in the Saxon region, to be exact, and was once designed in wood by carvers in the region that had strong beliefs in folklore.
It is said the original 1600s’ era German nutcrackers, a date range believed to have brought this concept to fruition, presented dolls that not were always in the shape of soldiers. They ranged from a practical tool to dogs, squirrels, people, kings, or other animal figures and were designed to not only function as a literal nut-cracking tool, but were also designed to be used as protection and good luck symbols.
They were an object to include in your home for just such a purpose, tying the original origins of folklore and belief systems of the region in Germany where they were created.
These “dolls” or tools of use, were often given as gifts, and eventually became gifts given at Christmas as well. As with any localized artistic object, as time went on, and more were created, they became more and more popular as a familiar item and export, reaching grand heights in the 1800s in not only Germany, but Europe as well.
Several reasons can be given for the popularity and recognition of such an unusual item.
In the early 1800s, a book, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” written by E.T.A. Hoffmann, was published in Germany.
It told the story of a Christmas Eve, and a girl with her toys and a nutcracker that becomes a living person for that special evening of magic and mystery.
This book ingrained in the holiday traditions, and was later adapted by Russian composers into several versions that adapted over the years to “The Nutcracker” ballet we all know today, by Tchaikovsky, that, given the story connection, is always performed on Christmas Eve.
It became and still is quite popular around the world, and is associated with the soldier nutcrackers used as décor at Christmas.
This famous ballet forever links nutcrackers to Christmas.
These unusual soldier dolls that cracked nuts became popular and ensconced in the American market when soldiers from World War II would bring the nutcracker home as a gift from the German markets, as a souvenir from their time overseas.
This began numerous soldier versions to be made and manufactured, as the item became popular and copied worldwide.
Originally created in those early German times using wood and lathes, as time moved forward and manufacturing techniques improved, many varieties exist today that are often ornamental in nature, and aren’t really used for the original purpose of actually cracking a nut.
When you unpack your holiday ornaments this year and pull out your collection of nutcrackers to place them on the shelf, remember the origins of folklore, artistic skill, stories read on Christmas Eve, and ballet dancers acting out nutcracker fantasies through dance and symphony.
Bright paint, moving, cracking jaws and a bowl of nuts remind you of these antique origins of an item forever linked to Christmas.
