Blogmas: The Nutcracker and Hiddensee

If you don’t know, my mom is a ballerina and choreographer! I grew up dancing and it doesn’t feel like Christmas without The Nutcracker. 

The first notes of the party scene make me teary in an instant. This weekend, I stopped home for the day so I could see my mom’s production in Connecticut. Which, funnily enough, is the only one I have ever seen. Even living in the city I’ve never seen New York City Ballet’s version! It used to be on my bucket list, but now I kind of love that I’ve only seen the one my mom works on! She’s the Artistic Director of the school I grew up in my whole life. 

The Nutcracker is the story of Clara traveling to the Land of Sweets with her Nutcracker Prince on Christmas Eve. There are so many beautiful illustrated books that tell the story! If you have a little one in your life, these would be a perfect Christmas Eve gift. 

This year, Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker by Gregory McGuire was released. He wrote Wicked as well and this is one book i want to try to read before Christmas!

Synopsis: “Hiddensee is not just a retelling of a classic story. Maguire discovers in the flowering of German Romanticism ties to Hellenic mystery-cults-- a fascination with death and the afterlife-- and ponders a profound question: How can a person who is abused by life, shortchanged and challenged, nevertheless access secrets that benefit the disadvantaged and powerless? Ultimately, Hiddensee offers a message of hope. If the compromised Godfather Drosselmeier can bring an enchanted Nutcracker to a young girl in distress on a dark winter evening, perhaps everyone, however lonely or marginalized, has something precious to share.” via Amazon

Do you have an attachment to a story from your childhood?