Christmas Eve, 100 Years Ago, Today

My favorite Christmas story features not a child in a manger, three wise men,
angelic choirs and the Star of Bethlehem.
Rather, it stars the dirty, cold and heart-achingly tired men … the Germans,
and Brits … in trenches … inhuman.

The Christmas truce of 1914, when world-wide war was still new, was a series
of unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front before and after
Christmas of 1914. In the week leading up to the holiday, overt hostilities
waned as soldiers greeted, talked and played with one another.

Men from both sides ventured into no man’s land on Christmas Eve and
on Christmas Day to mingle and exchange food and
souvenirs. There were football games, joint burial ceremonies and
prisoner swaps; indeed, several meetings … in carol-singing … did end.

Read between the lines @chachomanopapa on Twitter and a surreal analog, chachomanopapa.wordpress.com. Poetic history, in tweets and a blog.
And read too, AN ATLAS, POETIC; would that the spirit of fraternity that God
would have for us … becomes us … and delivers us … from war’s … fog.

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