24: The Nutcracker
I decided to end on The Nutcracker as I started on The Snow Queen, a story very familiar from ballet - in this case the ballet is the best known version, particularly in the US as a standard holiday show for many companies.
The eponymous Christmas gift, a soldier-shaped toy with a practical function, leads gingerbread men and assorted toys in the defence of a family home from an invading army of mice (often later changed to rats to seem less adorable) with the aid of the girl who got the present. So we have toys come to life, intelligent animals, and an epilogue about the Land of Sweets. It’s Toy Story versus Tom and Jerry with a stopoff in Candyland.
Plenty of settings have a suitable Weird Level for magic toymakers and dolls sword fighting with giant mice, so no trouble coming up with an adventure hook there.
The Nutcracker
The PCs are drafted in to help a toy reunite with its owner. This may also involve a mouse king.
But also...
The Show Must Go On
The PCs have to help with, protect, or otherwise ensure a high-profile artistic event takes place. During the Cold War, ballet was one of the cultural forms still used for international outreach and there are examples with defections and espionage, so this would be suited to a spy game too.
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