Why are they called wooden toy soldier nutcrackers?
We call them this because the first nutcrackers were made as replicas of soldiers and other figures of authority. The common folk took great enjoyment in having the ruling people working for them, cracking their hard nuts of life. The term wooden toy soldier differentiates this type of nutcracker from the other types. We call it a nutcracker if it has a handle in the back that opens the mouth, even if is too small to actually crack a nut. Parts for the wooden toy soldiers are turned on a lathe, as versus the intricately hand carved designs.
