Nutcracker Sweet

Every year, Kelvon Hansen gives a unique holiday gift to everyone who visits the AKYA AVEDA Concept Salon. Right after Thanksgiving, he pulls out storage bins from the storage under his stairs, carefully and lovingly unpacking the contents to arrange on the salon’s shelves.

Nutcrackers. Over a hundred of them, each one a varied and extraordinary piece of Hansen’s history.

“The first nutcracker I purchased was in 1980, so 42 years ago,” Hansen said. “He came from Ballet West, which was the first professional company I had performed with. I didn’t know anything about collecting nutcrackers or anything when I bought that one.”

Hansen was a professional ballet dancer for nine years, with his last three years at Ballet Austin. While performing at Ballet West, Hansen was also attending the University of Utah.

“One of the other students who worked at Ballet West brought me back a nutcracker from London,” Hansen said. “That’s what started the collection. I had one. He brought me one, and I thought, ‘Oh, this is kind of cool.”

Like with most collections, Hansen’s nutcracker menagerie accumulated slowly over time. He added a new nutcracker to the collection himself each year, and then, as people learned that he enjoyed them, they began to give them to him as gifts. Some of them have been gifted to Hansen from other nutcracker collectors as well.

“We had a guest here at the salon who was getting older and not in good health, and she also collected nutcrackers,” Hansen said. “She enjoyed when we would bring out the nutcrackers, and she told me one day that she wanted to leave her nutcracker collection to me when she passed. I told her, ‘You may want to leave those to your family,’ and left it at that.”

However, once the woman passed away, her daughter called Hanson to tell him they had her mother’s nutcrackers for him. “I was heartbroken that we had lost her,” Hansen said. “I thought surely these family members would want to have something to remember her mother by, and I suggested that to her. But a few weeks later, she came with three or five nutcrackers they wanted to gift to us, and they kept the rest.”

Like those nutcrackers, each one in their assemblage has an interesting story, from the Faberge music box nutcracker (one broken and then replaced by Hansen’s partner, Neil Ely) to the striking St. Peter’s nutcracker (which is also a music box but is often mistaken for the Pope). Among Hansen’s nutcrackers, guests will find a pirate, a Scotsman, a Pride nutcracker, a host of snowmen, several Santa Clauses and some nutcrackers that are more traditional. Hansen has adorned the front desk with strands of nutcracker lights, and a striking silver nutcracker at the counter that counts down the days to Christmas.

“We have a contest in the salon,” Hanson explained. “We let our guests guess how many total number of nutcrackers there are, and the winner gets a little prize.”

Since the contest is currently underway, Hansen was unable to give an exact number, but he did say that there are enough to fill eight storage bins with the hopes of adding a ninth storage bin this year. The entire process of unpacking and arranging the nutcrackers takes Hansen about six hours total.

“I’m really particular about arranging them,” Hansen said. “I try to do them a little differently each year. They stay up until Christmas, at which time the bins come back and they get all wrapped up and loaded and tucked away for another year.”

However, some of the nutcrackers make cameo appearances at various times throughout the year.

“Some of them do have recurring visits,” Hansen said. “Gaylord comes out during Pride Month. There’s a Leprechaun that sometimes comes up for St. Patrick’s Day. Sometimes the surfer dude will come up in the summer. The patriotic one comes up for the Fourth of July, just as a surprise for people.”

In 2020, due to Covid-19, Hansen almost decided not to display his nutcrackers.

“Leading up to the holidays, we were still at reduced occupancy in the salon,” Hansen said. “It had been hard, and like everyone else, I was kind of depressed about the whole thing.”

However, rather than giving into the darkness of that holiday season, Hansen decided to use his nutcrackers to help their customers feel seen.

“That year, we had seven nutcrackers up,” Hansen said. “Neil helped me out. I had him make masks for them. Those seven were socially distanced, and all the rest of them were quarantined at home. That gave us a little bit of levity in what we were all having to deal with. People enjoyed it. It was fun during a year when it could have been sad.”

Which is exactly what the collection continues to do. Each one is colorful and shiny, a bit of bright excitement against a cold winter day, and every time a person visits the salon, they can find something new and interesting about the nutcrackers they didn’t notice before.

“I get a lot of joy putting them up each year,” Hansen said. Forty-two years in the making, Hansen’s nutcracker collection is a source of joy for others as well.

To view Hansen’s nutcracker collection, visit AKYA AVEDA Concept Salon located 125 Moore Street, Suite 101.