Days before Thanksgiving, Brodie Stutzman stood in his workshop considering a nearly finished nutcracker. Unlike the traditional mantel-topping toy, this one is almost as tall as he is.
He shook a bottle of spray paint before applying a regal pattern onto the figure鈥檚 red coat, then moved on to another nutcracker balanced upside down on its top hat.
鈥淭his nutcracker is an old one,鈥� Stutzman said. 鈥淭he legs broke off. This happens a lot every year.鈥�
The toy鈥檚 repaired appendages stick straight up from its torso.
鈥淓very one of these nutcrackers has something that I鈥檓 doing to it,鈥� Stutzman said, gesturing to a room full of various toy parts.
Two freshly painted nutcracker arms dangle from the ceiling to dry. Nearby, a pair of the dolls stood ramrod straight, blank faces tilted upwards, awaiting a brush to paint bright eyes and mustaches onto their rosy cheeks.
鈥淚'm just moving around trying to finish things up,鈥� Stutzman said. 鈥淚'm still doing some painting on this one, doing some stenciling with that.鈥�
When he鈥檚 done, these giant toys will line Steubenville鈥檚 main drag to create a unique holiday attraction: the .
How Steubenville鈥檚 nutcracker display came to be
Stutzman has been carving the nutcrackers for Steubenville鈥檚 holiday display for 10 years. Before that, the city鈥檚 Christmas celebrations were dramatically smaller.
鈥淭hey had had a Christmas parade that had been poorly attended,鈥� said Gretchen Nelson, Stutzman鈥檚 mother-in-law.
At the time, she remembers community leaders getting together to brainstorm ways to revive the city鈥檚 holiday celebrations. Jerry Barilla, now the city鈥檚 mayor, then the owner of a local appliance store, suggested decorating storefront windows with nutcrackers.
Nelson鈥檚 husband suggested scaling that idea up.
鈥淲e had a manufacturing company, and we primarily make religious art, but we make a lot of different things,鈥� Nelson said. 鈥漑My husband] is a woodworker, and so Mark was like, 鈥榃hat if we made big nutcrackers?鈥欌��
They decided to give the idea a try. The couple鈥檚 daughter created designs for the giant toys and they enlisted their son-in-law, Stutzman, to bring them to life.
That first year, he built 37 nutcrackers. The next year, he made 75.
Hand carving the giant toys
Stutzman handcrafts each jumbo nutcracker from scratch, starting with a 200-pound block of Styrofoam.
鈥淲e cut it into smaller blocks with this contraption,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t's a hot wire cutter. As you can see, it moves back and forth and up and down. When it's working, you can cut blocks, you can make them into cylinders, get rough shapes.鈥�
Then, a wood lathe rotates the Styrofoam like a pottery wheel. As it spins, Stutzman uses a blade to give their toy bodies distinct shapes.
鈥淵ou then sand it smooth and then you coat it in fiberglass with a brush,鈥� he explained. 鈥淎nd then when that dries, you sand it [again] and that gets that final, complete version before you're ready to paint it.鈥�
Every year, he hand carves more nutcrackers like this, adding to the collection of more than 200 that are now on display in downtown Steubenville.
鈥淚t's like an army of toys in the streets,鈥� he said.
Some nutcrackers are traditional soldiers. Others are recognizable characters like Charlie Brown, Mary Poppins and the cast of the Wizard of Oz. This year, Stutzman is excited to introduce a new figure: Flick from A Christmas Story, complete with a tongue stuck to a flagpole.
Revitalizing Steubenville鈥檚 downtown
The army of nutcrackers has attracted national press. It鈥檚 been featured in the , the show, , and
And the attention has attracted swarms of visitors. Steubenville鈥檚 population barely skims 18,000 on a normal day. But last year, Nelson says five times that number of people descended on the city鈥檚 nutcracker village.
That scale of tourism is working wonders to revitalize the city鈥檚 streets, she said. Her family decided to invest in a building that had been mostly empty since 1970.
鈥淭he reason that we opened the coffee shop and the popcorn store and the Christmas store was because we saw the value in what was happening with the nutcrackers,鈥� she said. 鈥淢y husband felt like, 鈥楢ll right, we'll just put our money where our mouth is and invest in the downtown.鈥欌��
Others followed suit.
鈥淓ver since we started the nutcracker village, a pottery studio has opened, a cigar store has opened, the bookstore remained open,鈥� Nelson said. A pizza place and Mexican restaurant moved in too.
鈥淧eople need something unique in their city that's not just a part of their job or their commute, something that gives their town character,鈥� Stutzman said. 鈥淪teubenville has a lot of hidden character. We鈥檙e trying to expose that, and it brings more attention to the neglected parts of downtown.鈥�
So while Steubenville鈥檚 giant nutcrackers don鈥檛 come to life themselves on these long December nights, they are breathing new life into the city鈥檚 streets.
