This time of the year, you can’t escape the sounds of Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” suites or Tiny Tim asking God to bless all of us. We are all, at all times this month, about a candy cane’s throw from ...

Twenty years after Jennifer Fisher’s 2003 book appeared, America is still “Nutcracker Nation,” the country that’s taken Tchaikovsky’s holiday ballet to its heart. And nowhere more so than in Boston.