Giant nutcracker soldiers - also called toy soldier props - are the quickest way to make an entrance look like Christmas. A pair either side of a doorway, archway or grotto entrance does most of the scene-setting on its own, and the photos below are all from real jobs: shopping centres, markets, grottos and stages we've dressed over the years.
They're weatherproof, so they stand outdoors through a full season as happily as they do in a foyer, and they come in a range of colour schemes - red and white, navy and light blue among them - so a pair can be matched to the venue or the rest of the display.
Hire starts at £120 and works for a weekend or a whole season. If you're building a bigger festive setup, they slot in alongside our Santa's grotto, snow machine and the rest of the Christmas range - and for something more ambitious there's our nutcracker trail, which turns a set of them into an event in its own right.
