Christmas Truce memorial in Frelinghien, France
Flickr photo: AlanCleaver_2000

In 1914 the world was at war. Across Europe, German and Allied soldiers lined up against each other in trenches. On Christmas Eve that year, the soldiers began to call out across the divide. Some started singing Christmas carols in their trenches.

Then a remarkable thing happened. The men called a truce and began to come out of the trenches to meet and talk in “no man's land.”

Historians tell us that they met, shared cigarettes and even family photos. They buried the dead and in one place even played a game of soccer — the Germans allegedly won 3-2. As midnight approached they returned to their trenches and within hours, were back at war.

For this one brief moment, peace broke out in the face of the madness of war.

As one writer, Oswold Tilley, said, "This experience has been the most practical demonstration I have seen of 'Peace on earth and goodwill towards men’.”*

If men at war can make peace at Christmas, I encourage you to do so as well.

*Oswald Tilley as quoted by Brown, Malcolm and Shirley Seaton, Christmas Truce. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1984