Having just passed what was originally Armistice Day, the celebration of the end of The Great War, and before we are all caught up in the new Holiday season, I will add this to the book display.
U.K. Christmas Truce 1914 editor, Alan Cleaver, says, “…what a superb book. It’s obviously been a labour of love and it’s a fantastic read.”
A reflection on the Christmas truce of The Great War
Reviews: [Note, RIGHT Click to open in New Tab}
“Christmas Reading” (Catholic Media Review)
“…a truly moving account of the Christmas Eve in 1914…a worthy accompaniment to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in reminding us of the true meaning of Christmas in bringing Christ’s light into the world.”
“Highest recommendation.”
Look for opportunities to Share The Christmas Story through this unique story, with someone ‘outside the box’ this coming Christmas Season.
Being my late Grandmother’s birthday, today, this seemed a fitting time to post this as she was mentioned in the book regarding Armistice Day:
On 11 November, the warring parties signed the armistice,
bringing that great bloodbath to an end….
The deep meaning of that armistice remained in the
minds of World War I veterans a half century later
when the U.S. Congress, in one of its clueless moves,
changed the observance of the federal holiday from
November 11th to a certain Monday of October. Memorial
Day, Veterans Day and Washington’s Birthday
were all moved on the calendar in order to create
three-day federal holiday weekends.
Because of the war that had followed that “War to
End All Wars,” President Eisenhower had signed a
law that broadened the meaning of “Armistice Day”
by making it “Veterans Day” in 1954. But in the
minds of the World War I generation, the memory of
that armistice still held sway.
So, in the late 1960s when Congress changed the
date, I can still remember my grandmother adamantly
asserting that Armistice Day was November 11th,
NOT the fourth Monday of October. The thousands
of soldiers who, like my grandfather, had served in
France and other lands would not hear of such a
change.
… The end result was that one decade after changing
the date, Congress, in 1978, restored the observance
to November 11th.
Reblogged this on TextsInContext.