Although they are a favorite too. No,I love this time of year to place a big bowls of nuts out so we and our company can crack the little suckers and eat them. And they are good for you. I stopped the other day at the market to get my supply of mixed nuts for the holidays. But,what more fun is cracking them.And this time of year most people have a beautiful nut cracker to put out on a mantle and table somewhere in there home. Standing nutcrackers were metal ,iron or wooden in the forms of soldiers and kings in the Sonneberg and Erzgebirge regions of Germany by 1800's and in 1830,the term Nuusknacker appeared in the dictionary of the Brothers Grimm. It was defined as 'often in the form of a misshaped little man,in whose mouth the nut by means of a lever or screw is cracked open." These first nutcrackers did not appear until 17th century and were at first simple designs,however it wasn't long before these various designs of nutcrackers arrived.
Today,many wooden toy soldier nutcrackers are manufactured in Germany to meet the demand of the many collectors in the US,who can find designs in the characters from the ballet as well as hundreds of other designs.
While the Mistress and the Boy-Toy don't own a wooden nutcracker we have one that probably most people have. I have always found the faces to be just a bit creepy on those soldier and king nutcrackers. What do you think?
