Like an eccentric uncle, the holidays often sneak up on people and leave tinsel wherever they go. Deck the halls with today’s deal to Central California Ballet’s The Nutcracker at the William Saroyan Theatre in the Fresno Convention Center on Saturday, December 10. Students younger than 18 regularly receive discounted admission. Choose between the following options:

• For $14, you get one upper-balcony ticket (up to a $29.20 value online, including all ticketing fees).
• For $20, you get one ticket for seating in orchestra rows L–ZZ (up to an $40.65 value online, including all ticketing fees).<p>

For each option, choose between the following performances: * 2 p.m. * 7:30 p.m.<p>

Doors open one hour before showtime.

Central California Ballet’s holiday tradition, The Nutcracker, gets a fresh twist each year as professional dancers and local students recreate Clara’s enchanted evening with exciting toy battles, majestic sets, and dreamlike scenes. Husband-and-wife team Ethan and Nikki White, finalists in Paula Abdul’s Live to Dance, star in this season’s performance, showcasing the astonishing duets honed over years of dancing and fighting over the remote together. Children and adults alike delight in the thrilling choreography and fascinating geopolitical implications of battle scenes between the Mouse Queen and Nutcracker and will travel to exotic lands via the vibrant backdrops and costumes of the Sugar Plum Fairy’s lair.

Audiences watch the action-packed story in the comfort of the William Saroyan Theatre, whose excellent acoustics ensure aural clarity. The performance hall also houses more than 2,000 plush seats in its elevated tiers, allowing clear vantage points and preventing guests from accidentally crushing potato-chip likenesses of Teddy Roosevelt in their back pockets.