Getting In The Spirit: The Nutcracker, The Celesta, and Щелкунчик

I wanted to also post today to get in the spirit of the Christmas season.  Christmas is a season built of social, familial, and personal traditions.  Our memories, and consequently, our traditions are made of smells, sights, tastes, and sounds.  

I'd like to focus on one of my favorite sounds of the season.

The Celesta.

You've probably never heard of it, although you've likely heard it a thousand times.

This ring a bell?

How about this?

Now this one is getting closer.

The celesta is that mysterious, dreamlike, and otherworldly sound that sets the mood for so many of our imaginations' flights of fancy.  Not surprising, given that the alternate spelling of the instrument, celeste, means "heavenly", in French.

You can listen to NPR as they delve further into the intstrument that has set the soundtrack to so many memories.  Another reason I love NPR.  Who else would cover this?  

On that note, and in the Christmas spirit, I would like to present something that I've been looking for, for a long time.  When I was a kid, we had all these BETAMAX and VHS tapes that my dad made of all sorts of Christmas specials that we caught on tv.  Everything from Christmas Comes to PacLand, to the Smurfs' Christmas Special, Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas (which is heart-wrenching, and made my mom cry every year), and even The Small One (again this one made my mom cry every year...truth told it makes my own eyes kinda misty).

The one that has been the itch I couldn't scratch all these years, was an animated version of The Nutcracker Suite that aired on PBS back in those halcyon days of yore (the 1980s).  It was a Russian made, animated movie, set to the score of The Nutcracker Suite - named  Щелкунчик.

I remember that the Rat King frightened me.  I remember that there was some unusual Eastern European quality to the movie that I couldn't put my finger on.  And I kept on remembering that I hadn't been able to watch the movie... until now.  Thanks to YouTube, who makes so many of my animated memories visible yet again (Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors - I didn't even know I remembered them, until I saw them again).

Here is the Nutcracker, as I remember it. In parts - I, II, and III.