A Night to Remember

Every Christmas eve my wife fixes a very nice and elaborate dinner for relatives and other local friends. Tonight is a particularly meaningful reason to celebrate. It was 100 years ago tonight that the governments engaged in that slaughter known as World War I decided to have a brief cease-fire, a decision that modern neocons would doubtless condemn as being “soft on terrorism.” During the cease-fire, French, German, and British soldiers emerged from their trenches to speak with one another, exchange small gifts, sing Christmas music, erect a small Christmas tree, and play a soccer game. The events were chronicled in that wonderful film, Joyeaux Noel. As today’s LRC entry illustrates, the British grocery chain, Sainsbury’s, has summarized this into its Christmas commercial (at times like this, I wish this grocery chain had outlets here in Southern California)!

This real-world occurrence, one century ago tonight, terrified the establishment’s war machine. Soldiers who had been assigned to regions where this brief period of sanity and decency took place, were reassigned to other battlefields, lest the virus of peace should break out amongst warriors. The corporate-state abattoir might have been forced into political as well as moral bankruptcy, giving rise to the later Vietnam War-era bumper-sticker: “what if they gave a war and nobody came?”

On this Christmas eve, I wonder how many Christian churches will be remembering this centennial event, and how many will conduct services that begin with a Marine Corps color-guard, and end with a rousing “Onward Christian Soldiers”? At our house, “Joyeaux Noel” will be celebrated!

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11:37 am on December 24, 2014