Now you already know that in the course of their efforts to save the cursed Princess Pirlipat, the royal clockmaker named Drosselmeier (and his friend the royal astronomer) traveled all through the known world searching high and low for the nut Krakatuk. In the end, of course, they would find it in the place they had left, their home city of Nuremberg; and his nephew would crack it in his teeth and be cursed in turn to become the Nutcracker.

But do you know what Drosselmeier was doing on the tenth Christmas of his long quest?

Well, then, I’ll tell you.