Nuts

 We have wooden nutcrackers on our mantle and our tree at Christmas, probably as a nod to the German origins of our fathers and the Tschaikovsky ballet. I always want to stick a nut in them and see if they really work. I'm guessing not, although at one time, they could.

Standing wooden nutcrackers in the form of soldiers and kings were shown in the Sonneberg and Erzgebirge regions of Germany by 1800 and in 1830, the term “Nussknacker” appeared in the dictionary of the Brothers Grim.  It was defined as “often in the form of a misshaped little man, in whose mouth the nut, by means of a leaver or screw, is cracked open”. 

The Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum is an invaluable source for nutcracking history. I especially love their website's closing line, "A study of nutcrackers is a study of history itself as they reflect the cultural values and innovations of the place and time of origin." Because when you think of cultural values and innovations, you of course think of cracking nuts.