Young Iraqi dancers from a ballet and music school perform Thursday at al-Ribat Hall in Baghdad. Photo by Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images.

Villagers in Zhengyangguan, in China’s eastern Anhui province, raise two children dressed as a deities onto poles. The “floating ballet” is an annual ritual once celebrated in many other villages but is now on the decline with fewer children now participating.

(Photo by AFP/Getty Images)

A dancer from the Scottish Ballet sews on her pointe shoe straps before performing in a dress rehearsal “Sleeping Beauty” at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow.

Photo by Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images.

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The Daily Frame: A ballet dancer performs during Tuesday’s opening night of “Tamara” by Russian composer Mily Balakirev at the National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater in Minsk, Belarus.

(Photo by Viktor Drachev/AFP/Getty Images.)

(Photo: Angela Sterling)

The Pacific Northwest Ballet is one of many Nutcracker productions around the country that put their own local spin on the classic holiday ballet. 

Check out a slideshow of them, plus an interview with Jennifer Fisher,the author of Nutcracker Nation: How an Old World Ballet Became a Christmas Tradition in the New World, about the history behind this cultural phenomenon.