Merry Christmas!
Peace on earth and good will and all that jazz!
Ah the most wonderful time of the year.
A time of gift giving, cookies, and no small amount of booze to wash it all down.
Perhaps this year was a good one. Maybe it had its fair share of trials and tribulations. Some of you may have landed that dream job, got that promotion! Others may have experienced the pain of heartbreak or the unbearable loss of a loved one.
Regardless of your particular stance I urge you to take heart, dear reader.
Christmas is a time of both promise and remembrance. It’s when we come together as friends and family (whether in person or from afar) to remember that, yes, humanity can in fact take a collective pause in our perennial game of “who can be the bigger dickhead” to focus on love. And love, like hope, springs eternal.
It’s truly the season that brings out the best in people, allowing their humanity to shine through in a world that may otherwise appear dreary, tired, and, well, a bit shit.
Doubt me? Well fuck off I’ve still got presents to wrap.
Seriously, though, you don’t have to take my word for it. Consider instead the Christmas Truce of 1914.
If you think 2020 and 2021 were rough because you had to wear a mask try finding yourself ass deep in a Belgian trench during December, 1914. That’s right, not only are you freezing your cajones off in a European winter but you’re doing so in the so called “war to end all wars” (IE WWI).
A little back story: the Central and Allied Powers were at war, and, with neither side having been able to flank the other, they chose to dig into their current positions, creating a series of trenches that stared out at each other across a man-made hellscape that had been so raked by machine gun and artillery fire that one man would describe it as looking “as foreign and as lifeless as the surface of the moon.”
This war, begun but eight months ago, had already claimed twenty million dead.
Twenty million, dear reader. And they didn’t die of scurvy.
No, instead they were mowed down by machine guns, bled to death in no-man’s land a mere stone’s throw from their friends, were torn apart by shellfire, shredded by barbed wire, or struck with bayonet, knife, or even a nearby rock. Many wounded who had crawled into craters left by shells found themselves too weak to crawl back out, drowning as rain water slowly filled over their heads. Men begged their friends to shoot them rather than smother beneath pits of mud.
It was a time of reckless violence, dear reader, when man cut down man with the mechanical efficiency of a farmer come the harvest.
These young men, boys really, had experienced such violence and rage, had seen firsthand how someone yelling “over the top!” meant a town or village was likely about to lose most of their young men in a matter of seconds. These romantics who had once believed in the heroism of the charge had now grown haggard and disillusioned, accustomed to having the man beside them explode in a shower of gore or of having the very earth beneath their feet tremble as shells the size of cars were sent arcing into the sky to land on their unprotected heads in a barrage of artillery mankind has yet to replicate.
These men were in as close to an approximation of hell-on-earth as our species could provide.
This was once a charming forest. Once.
But through all the dirt, the blood, and the death came one thing the hawkish generals did not expect: Christmas.
It began, as many things do, in the quiet of night. It had been several months of hard fighting and though it was Christmas Eve men sat morosely in the freezing mud, huddled against the bite of snow in the air as they stared without hope at the blinking stars. It seemed just another night, business as usual on the western front, when a German voice rose high and clear on the night air, singing Silent Night.
The allies stirred, grabbing for their guns as they rushed to the front, certain this was a trick, a signal of some attack under cover of darkness.
But no attack came.
The voice continued to sing and soon others joined it until the air rang with song.
English voices began to sing as well, first a few, then dozens more until the entire battle line rang with that purest of Christmas tunes.
Eventually one brave English soldier rose above the lip of his trench, his hands in the air as he hesitantly stepped out into no man’s land. A German rose to meet him and soon both sides had cleared their own trenches to join them. Hands were shaken, hugs were made, and men smiled as they greeted soldiers that had been shooting at them mere hours before. Cigars, candies, buttons, and other souvenirs exchanged hands. Men talked and laughed and shared pictures of their families and that special girl back home. They took turns singing Christmas carols and shared what they had whether that was a hot meal, a stout drink, or good smoke.
Here, amid all the destruction man had wrought, here was peace on earth and good will towards men.
Up and down the battle line the rifles were silent. For the first time in almost a year laughter was heard in the woodlands of Belgium instead of screams. The truce continued into Christmas day with both sides even holding a good natured soccer match to commemorate the occasion.
Eventually the day wound to a close and each man said their farewells, slowly trickling back into their trenches to await the next days inevitable order to attack, to push, to kill.
The generals were horrified but the damage was done. Man had looked at man and found not an enemy, but a brother. Language was no barrier. Ideology was as nothing. A rifle was only good for propping up the Christmas tree. Though the war would rage and millions more die, countless times soldiers would think back to that fateful Christmas truce and think “why not now? We’ve already talked to these men. They’re reasonable. Why not end the war now?” Such questions hung in the backs of soldiers minds ever after December 24, 1914.
WWI was a gruesome affair. In many ways it was a shattering of innocence, and one that many who undertook it would not survive. But even that terrible war could not kill that most basic of human desires, that inherent want of kinship and peace.
Today a lonely cross marks the spot of the original truce in the village of Saint-Yves, its epitaph: Lest We Forget.
And we should not forget, dear reader, nor give in to despair. If those men could find it in their hearts to find a bit of decency amidst all of that then I think theres hope for the rest of us in the here and now.
To paraphrase the venerable Samwise Gamgee: there’s some good in this world, my friend, and it’s worth fighting for.
Silent Night, Holy Night
All is calm, all is bright.
Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child
Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace
Merry Christmas.