Christmas tradition soldiers on
Nutcrackers are a staple of classic holiday decor, but most people would be surprised to know that they're a relatively recent addition to the festive season. The first nutcrackers looked like pliers and were strictly dedicated to, well, cracking nuts — regardless of the time of year.
Only in the 15th century did form add to function, and woodcarvers started crafting pieces that resembled dogs, birds and other animals. These were known by the German word nussknacker, according to the Nutcracker Museum in Leavenworth, Wash.
Christmas-themed nutcrackers got their beginnings around 1872, when German woodworker Wilhelm Füchtner made the first commercially produced nutcrackers. Marketing mastermind that he was, Füchtner based his model on a character in Heinrich Hoffmann's popular children's book King Nutcracker and Poor Reinhold.
“(They were called wooden toy soldier nutcrackers) because the first nutcrackers were made as replicas of soldiers and other figures of authority,” reads the Nutcracker Museum's website. “The common folk took great enjoyment in having the ruling people working for them, cracking their `hard nuts of life.'”
And then, the 1892 ballet The Nutcracker hit. Based on an earlier book, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffmann, and with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the ballet was set at Christmastime and Füchtner's products quickly became associated with holiday decor.
Fast-forward to 2020, and nutcrackers are even more popular as nostalgia-themed trends like cottagecore continue to take hold. According to Google Trends, searches for nutcrackers have grown by more than 60 per cent in the last five years, and there are more than 96,000 Instagram posts about them. Plus, Better Homes & Gardens has named nostalgic decor as one of the top Christmas decorating trends of 2020.
So go ahead and put up those nutcrackers, and look at the holidays — and holiday decorations — as the one potential bright spot in an otherwise bummer of a year.
“We can't control a pandemic, but we can control the physical environment,” licensed clinical social worker Dr. Sola Togun Butler told NBC News. “So putting up lights, putting up the Christmas tree, gifts that make you happy or excited, (it) gives you something to look forward to.”
Incidentally, Füchtner's descendants still run his workshop in Seiffen, Germany. The Werkstätte Volker Füchtner (fuechtnerwerkstatt.de) continues to make nutcrackers, toys and other artistic wooden items.