Warn and hard rain in am, 50, becoming colder at night and some snow. We were all at Mother's for Christmas. LaVerne's, Wayne and Laura came in pm. Gerald and Mary Ann left at about 530 pm for Gloversville. We got home 9:15 pm.
Comment: Bessie, or "Mother", was 73 at the time, younger than I am now by 13 years...amazing somehow...Mom was 52 and Dad 57...that seems young now...
Christmas, 1914, WWI, Trenches In Europe, the troops held their own Christmas celebration for a day and then went back to killing each other. The Christmas Truce, which I'm sure pissed off most of the top brass, occurred spontaneously:
On and around Christmas Day 1914, the sounds of rifles firing and shells exploding fade in a number of places along the Western Front in favor of holiday celebrations in the trenches and gestures of goodwill between enemies.
Starting on Christmas Eve, many German and British troops sang Christmas carols to each other across the lines, and at certain points the Allied soldiers even heard brass bands joining the Germans in their joyous singing.
At the first light of dawn on Christmas Day, some German soldiers emerged from their trenches and approached the Allied lines across no-man's-land, calling out "Merry Christmas" in their enemies' native tongues. At first, the Allied soldiers feared it was a trick, but seeing the Germans unarmed they climbed out of their trenches and shook hands with the enemy soldiers. The men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings and sang carols and songs. There was even a documented case of soldiers from opposing sides playing a good-natured game of soccer.
Some soldiers used this short-lived ceasefire for a more somber task: the retrieval of the bodies of fellow combatants who had fallen within the no-man's land between the lines.
The so-called Christmas Truce of 1914 came only five months after the outbreak of war in Europe and was one of the last examples of the outdated notion of chivalry between enemies in warfare. It was never repeated—future attempts at holiday ceasefires were quashed by officers' threats of disciplinary action—but it served as heartening proof, however brief, that beneath the brutal clash of weapons, the soldiers' essential humanity endured. Wikipedia...
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