Archival photo shows British and German soldiers playing soccer on Christmas Eve 1914 during WW I
By Kathryn Ross
It isn’t always easy to get into the spirit of Christmas and this year it seems to be a little tougher than usual.
Heavy snowfall and bitterly cold weather had it looking like Christmas while some of us were still digesting turkey and cranberry sauce. Then over this past weekend students were gunned down and some died on the Brown University campus and Hollywood icon and beloved actor Rob Reiner was slain. Not much of the Christmas spirit comes to the heart and mind with what is occurring in the U.S. and around the world with ongoing wars and conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and now Venezuela.
On a more frivolous note, aside from world conflicts, I don’t really get into the Christmas spirit until I’ve heard my two favorite Christmas songs. Note I didn’t say carols, like ‘Oh Holy Night’ or ‘Little Town of Bethlehem.’ My songs aren’t even Christmas songs in the same bracket as ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas’ or ‘Jingle Bells.’ They are both less recognized.
The first, and I just watched the movie it is in, is ‘We Need A Little Christmas’ from “Auntie Mame.” The movie has special meaning to me, both of them, the first with Rosaland Russell, and the second, the musical, starring Lucille Ball, which features the song. It’s the early months of the Great Depression and Mame has lost everything in the crash, along with her young nephew Patrick who has been sent away to boarding school. She has just lost yet another job and comes home depressed and lonely. Then her nephew shows up on school holiday, and she takes one look at herself and the kid and decides they can’t wait for Christmas, they need a little joy now.
The lyrics, “So I’ve grown a little leaner, grown a little colder, grown a little sadder, grown a little older and I need a little angel sitting on my shoulder, I need a little Christmas now,” are eerily relevant to these times.
Sad as it is, the song puts me in the Christmas spirit when I hear it.
The second song that puts me in the spirit is totally ridiculous. It is ‘Snoopy’s Christmas,’ based on and sung to the tune of ‘Snoopy vs the Red Baron.’ It tells the story of a flying ace challenging the legendary WW I flying ace the Bloody Red Baron of Germany who shot down 80 Allied fighters during the war. In the Christmas version Snoopy takes to the air again, finds the German who drives Snoopy across the German line, forcing him to land. There instead of fighting, they drink a Christmas toast. Snoopy blames the Baron’s spirit on the chiming Christmas bells.
It reminds me of one of my favorite Christmas movies and again, it is not “White Christmas.” It’s “Joyeux Noel.” I’m sorry, I can’t do an umlaut over the e.
It’s a story based on a true incident during WW I. According to historians, “Late on Christmas Eve 1914, men of the British Expeditionary Force heard German troops in the trenches opposite them singing carols and patriotic songs and saw lanterns and small fir trees along the edges of the German trenches. Messages began to be shouted between the trenches and the soldiers joined their voices in familiar Christmas carols.
“The following day, British and German soldiers met in No Man’s Land and exchanged gifts, took photographs and some played impromptu games of football (soccer). They also buried casualties and repaired trenches and dugouts. Afterwards meetings in No Man’s Land dwindled out. The ceasefire was not sanctioned by either side. The generals in charge thought such a ceasefire would dull the fighting spirit. That didn’t stop the men. There were impromptu ceasefires at other times.”
They’re silly songs, but they mean Christmas to me because the silliness shows that the human spirit can be insurmountable and just. They show that in hard times people will band together and find some hope no matter how hard the struggle. They show that even in the bloodiest and most hateful of times humankind can put aside their differences, their hate, their conflict, their ideologies and find how they are alike.
With all the hatred spewing across our land today, this Christmas season, this holy season, I hope that we can find a way to put aside our differences and in the words of a Rock and Roll philosopher, “Come Together.”
Kathryn Ross has been a writer, reporter, photographer, and community activist in Wellsville NY for her entire life. She contributes to several local media outlets and can be reached anytime, kathr_2002@yahoo.com
