One of my favorite Christmas stories happened during the horrors of war. The Christmas carol “Silent Night” was actually responsible for a wartime Christmas truce. The year was 1914 and soldiers were having to spend Christmas Eve night on the World War I battlefields of Belgium. After only four months of fighting, more than a million men had already perished in the bloody conflict. The bodies of dead soldiers were scattered between the trenches. Enemy troops were dug-in so close that they could easily exchange shouts. On December 24, 1914, in the middle of a freezing battlefield in France, a miracle happened. The British troops watched in amazement as candle-lit Christmas trees began to appear above the German trenches. The glowing trees soon appeared along the length of the German front. Henry Williamson, a young soldier with the London Regiment wrote in his diary: “From the German parapet, a rich baritone voice had begun to sing a song I remembered my German nurse singing to me…. The grave and tender voice rose
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A familiar song popped up on a Christmas music station from the original soundtrack of A Charlie Brown Christmas. Jazz musician Vince Guaraldi’s score is simple and brilliant. Listening to the vocal version of “Christmas Time Is Here” brought back some wonderful Christmas memories. Christmas time is hereHappiness and cheerFun for all that children callTheir favorite time of the year A Charlie Brown Christmas is one of my annual delights. In many ways Christmas has become an economic and not a religious holiday. One of the most powerful reminders of the message of Christmas came from the genius of the late Charles Schultz. One simple and elegant scene captures it all. Charlie Brown has failed miserably in his attempt to find the true meaning of Christmas. But then Linus recites the following passage from the King James version of the Bible. “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the
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