You must know that The Nutcracker is a holiday all on its own; those little toy soldiers have inspired Ballet companies worldwide, with the ballet becoming the most performed and popular since the days of Swan Lake. Since 1954, seeing The Nutcracker has become as traditional as giving a Christmas card. Over 100,000 people see The New York City Ballets' famed production year after year, but what makes it such a draw? Is it the land of sweets, lollipops and cherry drops that makes us want to nibble away? Or the famous story of a girl on Christmas Eve with her Nutcracker sidekick who visits a world where flowers beat even the best breakdancers, mice are at war against their king, and toys are bigger than humans?

Let's talk about it.

A Nutcrackin' History

Life in the 1800s was no land of sweets; no electricity, water or heating - no wonder people escaped into stories, such as E.T.A. Hoffmann's The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (1816). It wasn't until 1844 that French author Alexandre Dumas had the idea to lighten the darker elements of the story, after all, no one wants a blackmailing seven-headed Mouse King.

Towards the end of the century in 1891, Russian Imperial Theatres commissioned up-and-coming composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to create a ballet, thankfully based on Dumas' more family-friendly adaptation of The Nutcracker. It would be the last of his three ballets, and The Nutcracker as we know it today was born. However, the ballet remained largely underperformed outside of Russia until Alexander Gorsky staged a new version in Moscow, which led to Western audiences having their first taste with a London performance in 1934. It wasn't until The San Francisco Ballet staged America's first full-length Nutcracker, choreographed by Willam Christensen, that it became a holiday favourite.

What Are The Most Popular Nutcrackers?

Productions like George Balanchine's The Nutcracker by The New York City Ballet hold the top spot for worldwide productions of the ballet. The New York City Ballet's version is now in its 76th year and has a whopping 90 dancers and 62 musicians, there's also Joffrey Ballet's The Nutcracker in Chicago which takes the original story and blends it into the 1893 Chicago World Fair, and is choreographed by Tony-award winner Christopher Wheeldon.

What has kept The Nutcracker alive for so long is that no two productions are the same. The New York Times even wrote a piece called 10 Ways To Tell If Your Nutcracker Is Traditional' - but not everyone wants tradition, some people like their Christmases that bit more chilly, and may opt for productions such as Mariinsky Ballet (Kirill Simonov) darker version, which is hauntingly mysterious, intriguing but also a breath of fresh air. Of course, if you're in London, you can catch the English National Ballet's version year after year in the West End.

No matter which city you live in, you're bound to have a version of The Nutcracker on your doorstep, and you're sure to be seriously impressed this Christmas!