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Holiday Preparations
(series – Sweet Nutcracker)

By Dahni
© 2023, all rights reserved

A Sweet Little Nutcracker Suite history and the Ballet

Plan now to check and see if a local performance of The Nutcracker Suite, by Tchaikovsky will be playing in your area. If you have never seen it, you are in for a real treat. If you have already tasted of it, re-treat yourself and see it again.

 The Nutcracker Suite is a sparkly little box of jewels made up of highlights from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s fairy tale ballet The Nutcracker, which has become a Christmas, staple around the world. Conductor Simon Rattle calls it “one of the great miracles in music.” The ballet’s title comes from a story, The Nutcracker And The Mouse King, written in 1814 by the German fantasy writer ETA Hoffmann.

After the pair had worked together on The Sleeping Beauty, the choreographer Marius Petipa worked with Tchaikovsky to write the music for a new scenario he had chosen and written out, based on a version by Alexandre Dumas of Hoffmann’s story. Yes, Dumas the Frenchman, is the same author that wrote ‘The Count of Monte Crisco’ of which the sandwich is named after. There is no charge for this little extra. 🤣

But, Petipa instructed Tchaikovsky down to the last detail, including the tempo and the number of bars in each section.

The Nutcracker, a fairytale ballet in two acts, is centered on a young girl’s Christmas Eve celebration and romantic awakening. She creeps downstairs to play with her favorite present, a nutcracker, which comes to life as a handsome prince who whisks her off to the Land of Sweets. The ballet was first performed on 18 December 1892 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia. The Nutcracker Suite became instantly popular and was featured in Disney’s — ‘Fantasia’.

Mushroom Dance from Disney Fantasia — 1940

   The Nutcracker Suite is a sparkly little box of jewels made up of highlights from Tchaikovsky’s fairy tale ballet The Nutcracker, which has become a Christmas staple around the world: conductor Simon Rattle calls it “one of the great miracles in music.” The ballet’s title comes from a story, The Nutcracker And The Mouse King, written in 1814 by the German fantasy writer ETA Hoffmann. Oh, but there is so much more.

Little Nutcrackers and some of their history

As children we had small nutcrackers. These brightly painted, carved, nut-cracking decorative toys with functional mouths were quality pieces mostly found and made in Germany. But who knew there would one day be a man and his little fledgling company, making them here in the United States? Enter Glenn Crider.

Making Nutcrackers in the USA and Little Ginger Cottages

Crider was a small-town born and raised in Virginia. Who knew that after 30 years in the IT sector of building software for a food service, he would be laid off. At age 54 his prospects were dim so, he plunged headlong into doing his own custom woodworking. He installed tools in his backyard shed and started making wooden circus toys: trains full of animals with bobbing heads and unicycle riders that danced through the air on a wire. TRC (Three Ring Circus), the name of his company, was born. “Then one day at a show I had this little toy soldier, maybe an inch tall,” says Crider. “A customer was looking at that, and she said to me, ‘Can you make a miniature nutcracker for my dollhouse?’ “That’s when the light bulb came on.”💡

So he started to make nutcrackers — designing, constructing them and even making the mechanical jaws, to crack nuts. He made them in all kinds of sizes. But he was still basically a starving artist.

It’s OK if you have not heard of Glenn Crider and TRC, but the United States Post Office and the Smithsonian Institute came calling anyway. Stamps were made from designs he made and shipped to them that they photographed and turned into stamps. The Smithsonian Institute houses some of his original designs. Larger versions were commissioned and made for the Nutcracker Suite ballet, for Richmond, VA and other cities.

Birth of ‘Ginger Cottages’

   “Among Crider’s nutcrackers is a baker holding a tray of treats including a tiny gingerbread cottage. In 2009, a customer unable to afford the doll asked whether she could just buy the gingerbread house. Using a laser engraver he had purchased to inscribe the company’s name on wooden nutcracker boxes, he began cutting out plywood roofs, floors, and walls and assembling tiny structures that looked like real estate from Santa’s Village. The Ginger Cottage line was born.”

Excerpt from:

https://www.inc.com/leigh-buchanan/how-a-laid-off-it-guy-built-three-ring-circus.html

   To this day, each ‘Ginger Cottage’ has several surprises including a little gingerbread cookie man hiding somewhere. I wonder if the little girl (now grown up), could ever imagine what was going to happen when she just wanted to buy a little gingerbread house for her dolls?    So how did a guy with mechanical skills (woodcarving), use his former training in computer software that laid him off? The game changed in 2010 when Crider discovered he could design his products on a computer then send them to a laser engraver for production. The development grew the business exponentially, Crider said.

About 15 percent of TRC’s business is custom work, and it grew dramatically. Cracker Barrel came calling and at one point, they were responsible for selling 30% of TRC’s designs. They even commissioned him to make a miniature cottage for ‘Cracker Barrel. I have one of those in my little collection of ‘Ginger Cottages’ that I put on display every Christmas season.

My Little Village with some ‘Ginger Cottages’ and original piano music (look closely and you will see my Cracker Barrel cottage)

Among clients that have ordered site-specific Ginger Cottages or ornaments for their gift shops: Busch Gardens – ‘Santa’s Workshop’ in the amusement park’s German section; Mount Rushmore for the studio where Gutzon Borglum designed the monument; and Colonial Williamsburg (six historical buildings at the living-history museum). “It turns out they have 400 buildings they want done,” says Crider about his Colonial Williamsburg work. “I don’t think I’m going to live long enough.” 

 TRC Designs eventually had tour busses stopping by to tour the only Nutcracker making company in America at the time. They were the only one that made them with the functional nut-cracking jaws, for a very long time. They had 58 sales representatives in 40 states and worked diligently to pick up the other ten states. They did. Initially, states like Alaska, Texas, Hawaii and South Carolina did not have TRC Designs representatives. But they still shipped to stores and individuals, and collectors everywhere in the USA and all over the world.

In 2019, ‘Old World Old World Christmas’ of Spokane, Washington bought TRC Designs Inc. and its Ginger Cottages collection of wood ornaments. Glenn Crider, the founder and designer of the clever ornaments and figurines, joined the Old World Christmas team and continues to design all Ginger Cottage products.

https://oldworldchristmas.com/collections/cottages

Glenn Crider ‘Ginger Cottages’ for Old World Christmas

Back to the Sweet Nutcracker Suite

A Tradition in Rochester, NY – Where I first experienced the Nutcracker Suite Ballet just a very short few years ago.

Please note: I am neither sure of the local dates or ticket prices for Rochester, NY, but wherever you may be, find a venue, purchase some seats and go experience for yourself, a Sweet Nutcracker Suite for the holidays. Maybe get started on your own miniature Nutcrackers and  ‘Ginger Cottage collections too!