More than Frosty and his generosity. More than Charlie Brown and his true story of Christmas. More than that yah-who-florays song all the Whos down in Whoville sing to the Grinch. And nearly more than Scrooge’s time-honored ghosts, Clara Silberhaus has stolen my heart for the holidays.

You’ll remember her as the adolescent darling whose dreamy story is told in Tchaikovsky’s beloved ballet “The Nutcracker,” which the Robinson Ballet and the Bangor Symphony Orchestra performed four times over the weekend at the Maine Center for the Arts.

Just so you know, this is not an easy thing for a reviewer to admit — all this warm-fuzzy stuff. But at the end of Saturday night’s performance, my heart really and truly tingled because of Clara’s girlish fantasies about the magic of Christmas — not to mention sugarplum fairies, princes, giant mice, marching soldiers and a cavalcade of adoring subjects from the far reaches of the world.

I wanted to reach out to some little girl in a red velvet dress, patent leather shoes and beribboned curls and give her a motherly squeeze. “Sugar and spice and everything nice,” I’d assure her — much against all the advice given by the 10 years of college books I read on feminism.

Even after a dozen years of seeing the same show performed by the same company and the same orchestra, this is what “The Nutcracker” still does to me. It reduces me to a little girl caught up in a snowy adventure with a nutcracker as the hero. Sheesh. It’s embarrassing.

But I won’t take full responsibility for myself on this one. Of course, my blithering response has everything in the world to do with Tchaikovsky’s gushingly romantic score and the live presentation of it. More than that, however, it has to do with the annual treasure that local choreographers, dancers, designers and musicians uncover for their communities.

For anyone who has been watching this show over the years, it’s fun to watch for new nuggets of gold in the production. This weekend, the particular shimmers came from Steve Carignan’s warp-speed snowflakes of light on the back scrim, and luscious costumes by a cadre of sewing gurus.

The corps de ballet is, undoubtedly, the star of this show. This year’s girls and women were elegant and vivid. The Harlequin Dolls, played by an amazingly mechanical Ashley Emerson, Tiffany Mastromarino and Sarah Stoodley, gave a fresh performance of clever choreography.

Maureen Lynch, one of the company’s best dancers, capably resumed her role as the Sugar Plum Fairy. Her ageless grace combined sweetly with Alexander Zendzian’s youthful limberness for final pas de deux that was simply enchanting.

Ian Robinson, who has ballet in his genes, was a pugnacious Fritz (among other roles). And Lauren Wood was lissome as Clara.

The BSO, under the direction of Christopher Zimmerman, was not as vibrant as the dancers Saturday night. Still, its contribution to the intensity and excitement of this production is immensely and admirably solid.

Longtime “Nutcracker” patrons might have experienced a smidgen of withdrawal when they realized that hotshot dancer and Robinson co-artistic director Kelly Holyoke hung up her toe shoes this year. Similarly, company cutup Bob Libbey disappointingly disappeared from the cast list. These were, for sure, two losses. The Robinson Ballet, however, is always turning out the next star, and this show had no shortage of dancers to enjoy.

Even for a closet romantic, there’s no getting around the good time Robinson Ballet and the BSO offer at the MCA during the holidays. The ballet company will be doing just that again next weekend in Caribou, and again the following weekend in Lincoln. They’ll do some dancing, pass out some cheer, and probably make more than one person well up with a softhearted, girl-kind-of appreciation for the very same holiday lessons that are also learned by Frosty, Charlie Brown, Mr. Grinch and Scrooge.