A Christmas to Remember

Well it is just 2 more days to Christmas, so I thought this post would be fitting. I know Christmas has been heavily commercialized over the past many years & the priorities of people have changed over the years. This festival & season is meant to be the season of joy & giving, where we can embrace that better side of us  & be more generous, forgiving, caring than we have been all year long. It’s something about this time of year that does this, maybe it’s because it’s the end of the year that we tend to look back & reflect on what we have done & try make up for what we've done all year long. Well anyway nowadays people would rather get the new iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy 3 & other such materialistic things that we tend to lose focus on what I would consider more important human values like generosity or putting aside petty differences etc.

Christmas 1914

This story is about the Christmas of 1914, back during the First World War. It was in the first year of the Great War in the trenches in Europe, Where this incredible story takes place. On Christmas Eve during the frigid cold winter in the region of Ypres, Belgium, German soldiers began decorating their trenches to celebrate the festival after months of fierce & bloody fighting; this was done to improve morale amongst soldiers in the freezing cold trenches. The story goes on that the German soldiers began placing candles on their trenches & decorated Christmas trees & started singing carols. Upon hearing this, the British responded by singing as well. Greetings were exchanged across the trenches from one side to another & an unofficial cease fire took place.

illustration of the truce

The guns & artillery had fallen silent in many sectors across Europe, in some places the cease fire lasted till the New Year. It was said that on that Christmas in 1914, German & British soldiers exchanged gifts of whatever they had on them like food rations, tobacco & alcohol in No Man’s Land. Also there was a friendly game of football between the two sides.

German & British soldiers playing football

The whole point of this story was to highlight the fact the incredible nature of the Human spirit & the good that can happen even during one of the darkest times in human history. And maybe we can find that little bit of good in us, set aside petty differences we have with certain people, forgive those who have wronged us or be generous.

Anyway I hope you’ll liked the story, I didn’t mean to sound too preachy.

Hope you’ll have a Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!!!