The Nutcracker

In my kids' "bedroom library," we have a fairly large collection of Christmas and winter-themed books -- stories that are not touched during the year, yet poured over with relish once Thanksgiving is over. For as long as I have been reading to my children, one of their favorite stories of this genre is The Nutcracker.

Thanks to several acquisitions and a friend's donations from various library book sales, we have quite a few versions of this story in our collection. Aidan, being the particular child that he is, sometimes prefers comparing the versions rather than reading the story itself. I have caught him on more than one occasion spreading each book out on the floor, looking at the different illustrations and making comments: "Look, Mommy -- this Mouse King has seven heads, while this one only has one," or "In this book his jaw gets broken, but here his whole head broke off!" He has been particularly stumped on one particular version which refers to the little girl as Marie, while every other book calls her Clara. "We like Clara better," declared Grace. Clara it is.

For the past several years, my kids -- and Grace especially -- has been asking for a Nutcracker of their own for Christmas. My mom has a tiny one that Grace simply adores, but I have not been able to find one that small. Each year I make up their gift lists, purchase their Star Wars figures or Littlest Pet Shop animals ... and completely forget about their Nutcracker request. Yet each year they keep reminding me.

We commenced our Nutcracker marathon this month, as usual, and once again their requests resurfaced. This time my mom came to the rescue, informing me that CVS had them on sale ... and small ones to boot! Grace was napping one afternoon, so my mom put on the old baby monitor to listen for her while I zipped down to the store. But of course ... all of the small ones were sold out. What remained were four larger ones, about 14 inches tall. The price was reasonable and I picked out two different ones, one for each child. The choice was not an easy one -- I played scenarios of complaints in my head as I inspected each one ("I like that one better! I don't like these colors! He's holding a drum - the real Nutcracker didn't have a drum!"), so I'm hoping I made the right choices. (Note to self: don't buy the one with the drum).

I'm excited about this -- I think the kids will be thrilled. I just hope Aidan doesn't try to reenact the Fritz storyline and break the head of Grace's precious nutcracker. Yet then again, if that doesn't happen, the best part of the story won't unfold ...