The Nutcracker: lessons for life, at Christmas

 The Nutcracker: a Christmas classic

It’s just turned 2024 but I figured I couldn’t let Christmas go without a post of its own! There were lots of contenders for the Christmas blog, but being the ballet girl I am we had to go with my personal favourite, of course. (Sorry, I do make the rules around here.)


The Nutcracker is one of the world’s most famous ballets, probably because it comes up year after year, and has now become synonymous with Christmas. Tchaikovsky’s gorgeous score is iconic, the story is whimsical and light-hearted, and the costumes are always fabulous (glittery and colourful and all the rest of it). Not to mention that there's a Barbie animated adaptation of The Nutcracker, too, so surely that counts for something.



So what makes The Nutcracker a Christmas essential? Tchaikovsky’s score, from the overture, injects a sense of anticipation and excitement into us. We sit on the edge of our seats waiting for the curtain to rise, waiting for the story to begin. How similar that feeling is to the feeling we get at Christmas? We go to bed on Christmas Eve, expecting wonderful gifts from Father Christmas, looking forward to a day of good food with even better company. At the same time as we have this excitement and anticipation in The Nutcracker that emulates real life, we also can sink into the familiarity and perhaps the nostalgia of The Nutcracker. It’s a story and a production that Christmas is incomplete without, and the anticipation we have around it might be less to do with the expectation of something new (necessarily) and more to do with looking forward to the comforting presence of a familiar story. 



The Nutcracker also reminds us to believe in the imagination and indeed the magic of Christmastime. As Clara’s mysterious godfather Drosselmeyer takes her through fantastic fights with rats and into a wondrous world of sweets, so too do we find ourselves transformed, transported, and immersed in this world. For a few hours, we can escape the dreariness, cold, and cynicism of the winter and instead romanticise our lives, indulge in fantasies of escape and magic, and find a little pocket of joy.




Whatever your feelings around Christmastime, love it, hate it, somewhat unbothered, The Nutcracker has something for everyone. If you love Christmas, this is the perfect production to get you in the Christmas spirit - to embrace the magic. If you hate it, The Nutcracker isn’t just about Christmas. At its core, it’s an adventure of a young girl into a world of magic. It doesn’t all make sense, but who cares? And if you’re neither here nor there then you can at least appreciate the artistry, the craftsmanship at work, the musical score, the element of fun. 



And each ballet company - wherever they are in the world - has a slightly different production. That’s not unique to The Nutcracker, but it’s something that’s very special about the ballet world. No one is ever watching the same performance, even if they’re sitting right next to each other in the auditorium. So maybe that’s something to take into the new year: whoever you are, sometimes we forget that the world looks utterly different through the eyes of other people. I think there’s a lot to be learned from gaining new perspectives, listening to other people’s life outlooks, sharing our own point of view, whilst also accepting we will never necessarily see exactly eye to eye. After all, wouldn’t the world be a boring place without a little variety?

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