Nußknacker are a decorative form of nut crackers. Although they are usually able to crack nuts using their mouths, they are normally used as Christmas ornaments.  They have the form of a person, such as a soldier in uniform.

Originating from the area around the Ore mountains they can have around 60 moving parts!

The figures inspired the Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky.

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

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Tags: ballet, Christmas, Nußknacker, nuts, soldier, Tchaikovsky, Weihnachten

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 1:21 am and is filed under Christmas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.