OUR NUTCRACKER COLLECTION - 19YEARS IN THE MAKING!

Some of our Nutcracker collection

No two Nutcrackers are identical and they each have their own personalities

Traditions have a funny way of sneaking up on you, I feel. Many years ago when my younger son F was celebrating his very first Christmas, my parents gave him and his older brother O, a beautiful nutcracker after we had been listening to Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. The following year, they gave O & F another nutcracker for Christmas, and now 19 years later, they have given them one every year since, and as a family we have developed a wonderful Christmas tradition along the way! We have written the year under the base of each one, and no two are identical. Each year they make us laugh as they line up across the table to celebrate Christmas. Yearly we all repeat the same jokes - about the 'leanness'  of the year relating to the little nutcrackers or particularly skinny ones, or the success of the years relating to the fat/large ones. We each have our favourites, plus nick names for many of them, and they have now become part of the fabric of our family and a wonderful source of entertainment for us all. One day when O & F leave home we will split the collection, but whatever happens we will continue to add a new nutcracker each year. These 'little men' give us such delight for the 4 weeks they show their faces each year!  

Our Nutcrackers have become the only Christmas decoration we display each year as they have such visual impact!

They do actually crack nuts, with their movable mouth, but we rarely use them for this purpose!

This centre Nutcracker is our 2011 addition - our 19th one!! My favourite is on the left of this photo

I love a sparkle!