RLL Ep.41: Christmas Eve 2020

You're listening to Radio Luke's Lucid. I'm your host, Steve Matthews. Thanks for joining me for episode 41, Christmas Eve, 2020. Well, it's hard to believe once again, it's here. We find ourselves at Christmas time, you know, the, the years, they seem to, uh, to go faster and faster.

I think the longer that I'm around, it seems like it was only a few days ago that we were celebrating Christmas a year ago. Um, but here we are once again in, uh, in 2020, you know, this Christmas of course has been a little bit strange for probably a lot of us, uh, you know, with all the, uh, the COVID restrictions out there, you know, it makes it harder to go to go to church or to travel, to be with, uh, with loved ones and friends, family.

And, uh, you know, even for me, I mean, I, I've always gone to a Christmas Eve service and this year, you know, with all the, uh, you know, say with all the COVID stuff, I ended up, uh, not going to, uh, to a service and I thought, well, what better way to, uh, uh, spend Christmas Eve, to celebrate Christmas Eve and to, uh, uh, you know, do a podcast, spend a little bit of time with, uh, with my friends on a, on a podcast.

So, uh, so welcome to the program tonight. I'm glad you're here. And, uh, and I hope that, uh, that you find this, uh, uh, that, uh, that you get something out of this, uh, here this evening. You know, I, I hesitated a little bit to, to do this program.

And the reason being, of course, I, I'm a Calvinist, I'm a, I'm a reform believer. And I know that there are, are some people in the reform community that who don't believe that that Christmas is something that we ought to celebrate, you know, that, uh, I mean, they certainly believe in the, the birth of Christ and, and, uh, the incarnation and, and, uh, and all the doctrines of Christ.

You certainly believe those things. They just don't think that that celebrating Christmas is something that's appropriate. And, and, you know, I'm not here to, to argue about that here tonight. Um, I think certainly theological argumentation is, is worthwhile.

I do think there is warrant in, in the scriptures for celebrating Christmas. I don't believe that it's, uh, it's sinful to do so. And as I said, I'm not, I'm not here to argue about that tonight. I'm just here to do a program and talk with you a few things about, uh, uh, about Christmas and things that I love about Christmas.

And, uh, of course, one of those is, is the, uh, just talking about the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And we'll, we'll do that as we, uh, as we go through the program here. Well, maybe before we dive into some of the, uh, uh, some of the doctrine here, I want to just tell you, maybe talk a few, a little bit about maybe some things that I do love about Christmas.

And maybe some of these things seem maybe a little bit silly. I don't know, but, uh, but they're things that I do enjoy. Uh, and I think probably a lot of people enjoy these too. Um, one of the things I was thinking about as far as Christmas goes is of course, Christmas lights.

Um, and I think one of the things that inspired me to think about that a little bit is, uh, we have a, a neighbor here who has, uh, a pretty big light display, you know, and I'm thinking, you know, maybe if you remember, there's that scene in, uh, I think it's national Lampoon's Christmas vacation where at the, the end, you know, they, they, they plug it, they plug in the big light display at the Griswold house, you know, and it lights up and it takes down the power grid and the whole city.

Well, they're kind of working on a kind of take down the power grid light display. Uh, my neighbors are here and, uh, you know, it maybe isn't quite to that point yet, but I think it's getting there. It seems like it gets a little bit bigger every year.

So I don't know, maybe the next few years we'll see, uh, see the power grid go down because of the, uh, the Christmas light display. Well, anyway, um, so yeah, you know, and the funny thing is, I say, I really do like Christmas light.

Just sometimes I'll go out, I'll take a walk in the evening and I go by and, and, you know, I always puts a smile on my face. It really does, you know, and um, you know, that, that's a good thing. Uh, that's not, that's not a bad thing at all.

And I, I'm not, I'm not going to complain about that. You know, there's a, you know, especially like if you live here where I do, I mean, I live in Cincinnati and, and winter's here. Well, they're not as severe as they are some places.

I had a friend of mine from North Dakota and she used to insist that we didn't have winter here. And of course she was in North Dakota. So, well, I can see her point, you know, in North Dakota they get some mighty cold winters and they get a lot of snow.

Uh, we don't get anything like that here. And you know, we don't have some of the really severe winter weather in, in Cincinnati as some other parts of the, uh, of the country get, like if you get up into even a lot of the great lakes, like you get up around Cleveland or, you know, other cities around the great lakes, they get the same, they call it lake effect snow.

And what it is, is a lot of moisture in the air due to the, uh, you know, the large lakes up there and that kind of feeds into these, these snow storms and it tends to amplify it and they can get some pretty massive snows.

I remember, Oh, it was a year or two back. There was this giant snow. They had an Erie, Pennsylvania, which is on Lake Erie. And I think I remember reading something in the paper where they got, I want to say maybe five feet of snow over a period of about 24 hours or some insane thing like that.

And I had a client, I have a job, I talk to people around the country and one of my clients, uh, actually lived and worked in Erie, Pennsylvania. I was talking to her and she was back at work. This was only like a day or two later.

And I asked her, I said, how is it that you can be back at work after you just got five or I don't know, six feet of snow, some, some crazy thing like that. And she says, Oh, we, you know, we get this stuff all the time.

You know, we're just, we're used to it. You know, like it was nothing. Um, you know, like we get five or six inches here in Cincinnati and stuff shuts down. It, it, it really does. And, but you're just talking about, you know, the winters in Cincinnati.

I mean, we say we don't get massive amounts of snow. We do get some snow. Uh, you know, it can get cold, but not as cold and maybe necessarily some other places. I mean, we can have days where it gets below zero, but those are exceptional.

Yeah. That's, that's not typical. Um, usually what we get here in Cincinnati are these long dark gray days. And you know, the, the clouds will come in and you have this, this sort of low, uh, solid gray cloud ceiling.

And it would just be that way all day. And it might be that way days and days at a time. And it seems like weeks and weeks at a time. And you starting, you start getting that in December and then you get into January and February.

And it seems like you hardly ever see the sun. And I think maybe, maybe of all the things I don't like about winter, I don't like all the darkness. You know, it seems like the, the sun, uh, the sun just goes away.

Of course, you know, the sun comes up and sets later in the winter, obviously. But I say it's more than just that. When you add to that, the cloud cover, it just gets, it can be kind of dreary in a lot of ways.

Um, and how does that tie into Christmas lights? Well, you know, you walk around a neighborhood and you go by this, this yard here, you know, and everything's dark, but then this little yard, this yard is, is lit up.

And you know, it's, uh, it, uh, it brings a cheer to my heart. It brings a joy to my heart. And I enjoy seeing that. So I don't, um, you know, I'm never going to complain about somebody putting up Christmas lights, even if they put up a lot of them.

Um, so yeah, I, I do like the Christmas lights and there was a Christmas light display here in, in Cincinnati never years ago. It's kind of interesting. There was this, this is about 15 years ago. And, and people, I remember, I think it was maybe somebody at work or somewhere.

I, I got sent this link to this, this, uh, this, uh, Christmas light display. And, and what it was, it was a, it was this house and it had the, it had a soundtrack to it. They, they had used some kind of computer control to synchronize the lights on the house, the light display on the house to a, a tune to a song by a trans Siberian orchestra called wizards of winter.

And if you don't know that, that tune wizards of winter, it's the way I would describe it to you. It's kind of like a cross between Tchaikovsky and, and Metallica, which I know sounds kind of weird, but it actually works pretty well.

And it's, uh, they, what they did is they, they, they would play this, this soundtrack is about three or four minutes song and they would computer sync these lights on the house and in the yard to dance and change and do things to the music.

And it was an amazing video. I mean, it's, it's hands down the single best home light home Christmas lights display I've ever seen. And I was 15 years ago. I still haven't seen anything that thought was as good as what that was.

It was very, very well done. And in fact, it was even used on some advertisers, um, some national advertisements. And, and I think it's actually, you can actually find the video it's out there on YouTube and the, uh, it's endorsed by the trans Siberian orchestra.

It's like the official Christmas lights display for the trans Siberian orchestra for this particular song. So it, it's impressed a lot of people. And, and what, what I thought was really interesting about is after this, this link had been passed around and I watched it and we, I was talking with some people and a friend of mine said, well, you know, that's right here.

And I was like, wow, it is. Yeah. It's right here in Cincinnati is in a Cincinnati neighborhood. It's probably about 20 minutes or so from my house. So remember we drove up and I saw this thing and, and, and you would drive by and they had like, they actually had a radio station that would play the, the, the tune wizards of winter.

So you tune your radio to it and you drive by and you'd see the lights go through their, their, their cycle. And it was pretty amazing. Um, our cars lined up all over the place. I don't know, maybe they, uh, they, they may not have been really super popular with their, their neighbors because of all the traffic it generated.

Um, but, but it was a really, really impressive lights, light display. And like I say, the, the video, it's actually still out there on, uh, on YouTube. I'm gonna go ahead and put a link to that in the show notes.

And I think you might, uh, might enjoy watching that if you haven't seen it, because like I say, even 15 years later, it's still, still the single best home light display that, that I've ever seen. So yeah, I, I do like Christmas lights and that's one thing that I, I like about, uh, about Christmas.

Um, you know, another thing that always amazes me about Christmas is how Christian ideas, Christian, um, thought will show up in places that you would never see at any other time of year. I remember a few years ago, I was up at the grocery store here and, and they were playing Christmas tunes over the, uh, over the, the store, you know, the store sound system, you know, usually it's music or, or something like this, but it was, it was December and they were playing Christmas tunes.

I can't remember what song it was. It may have been, uh, may have been Hark the Herald Angels sing. I don't recall, but you know, you're sitting here going through the grocery aisle and you're hearing these lyrics, you know, born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth Hark the Herald Angels sing glory to the newborn king.

And I'm thinking, this is that grocery store. And I'm sitting here listening to these, these, these amazing lyrics. And I'm thinking to myself, you know, the people listening to this, they really understand, do you get what you're listening to?

This is the greatest stuff you could ever hear. And I mean, you would never hear that any other time of year, but during Christmas people, and I'm talking here about people who are unbelievers, they will still listen to this stuff.

And, and they're do so in most cases without any real complaint. You know what I mean? It's, it's, it's interesting how, how people, even if they're not necessarily Christians, um, they, they can, they seem to, to enjoy that type of thing.

And, you know, and I've wondered how many times maybe people have, um, come to believe the gospel, uh, just casually and things like that. I mean, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's an interesting thought, uh, you know, and I don't have any way of knowing that, but it's just, it's fascinating though, how some really profound Christian ideas can find their ways in places that you don't even expect, even the grocery aisle, uh, even a, a, a business, maybe that's not necessarily a Christian business, but, but it's just going about doing its thing.

And all of a sudden is this shows up on the, on the, uh, on the store sound system. So that's pretty amazing. Now I also have, I have to admit, I do like, uh, Christmas movies. Uh, there, there are some really classic, really classic stuff out there.

And if you had to press me, if you had to say, well, Steve, Steve, what, what, what's, what's the, the, the favorite Christmas movie you have? What, what do you like the best? Um, and I guess if I had to say there would be one, um, the one I really love is a Charlie Brown Christmas, a Charlie Brown Christmas.

Yeah. It's a, it's a cartoon. Um, and there's so much great stuff about that. It, it debuted in, in 1965 and in preparation for the podcast today, I was, I was just doing a little bit of research and I came across, there was an art, an article from back in, in 2016.

And this is in, um, in New York magazine and it has a headline. It's got a title here. It's called how a Charlie Brown Christmas almost wasn't. And this is dated November 16th, 2016. And I'll just read the first paragraph here.

It says, quote, soon millions of American families will come together to celebrate the holidays and passive aggressively debate whether the country has just been saved or destroyed. Uh, this was just after a Donald Trump was, uh, was elected back in 2016.

I suppose that's what they're referring to. Continuing with that quote for many one annual ritual will provide a welcome distraction. Watching a depressed child get berated and mocked relentlessly a Charlie Brown Christmas based on the peanuts comic strip has aired every December for the last 50 years longer than any other holiday program besides Rudolph, the red nose reindeer for last year's anniversary.

President Obama called a special one of the country's most beloved traditions. Well, you know, oddly enough, there's not a lot that I would agree with on, uh, on Barack Obama. But, um, yeah, I think, uh, I would agree with that.

And, uh, let's read a little bit more here. It says Lee Mendelsohn, who produced a Charlie Brown Christmas thinks this message might be particularly relevant this year with at least half the population feeling like someone pulled the football away.

These people identify with Charlie Brown, maybe more than ever, uh, ever after this election season keeps fighting back and keeps enduring. Mendelsohn says, if we ever have to fight bullying at so many levels, this is it.

Well, maybe I wouldn't quite, quite put it that way. I, I think maybe, uh, maybe Lee Mendelsohn's politics, maybe a little bit different from mine, but I'm not gonna, gonna sit here and, uh, like I say, and argue about this.

But anyway, when you, when you read through, um, this article, there's actually some pretty interesting stuff. And it talks about how the, uh, the Christmas special came to be. And, uh, oh, here let's, let me read this part for you.

He says, quote, when most people don't realize is that the holiday classic, the Charlie Brown Christmas barely made it into production and was almost buried forever. In 1965, no one believed that Charles Schultz's story of an underdog sticking to his principles in the face of constant bullying would make for good TV.

The show originally sprang from a failed documentary Mendelsohn had tried to make about Schultz. No networks had wanted it, but after Charlie Brown and the gang were featured on the cover of time magazine, Coca-Cola's ad agency, McCann Erickson got the idea for a holiday special and approached Mendelsohn desperate after his documentary imploded.

He lied and told the agent that in fact, he and Schultz had discussed such a project. He called Schultz and told him they'd sold a Charlie Brown Christmas. Schultz said, what's that? Mendelsohn recalls.

And I said, it's something you're going to write tomorrow. And it continues. Mendelsohn rang animator, Bill Melendez, who had helped animate a two minute segment in the never aired documentary. The three met in Schultz's office in Sebastopol, California.

Schultz wanted the show to focus on the childhood stress of putting on a Christmas play. Mendelsohn had just read the fir tree by Hans Christian Anderson and suggested the story include a tree that is sad and misunderstood as Charlie Brown.

They cranked out an outline and put it in the Western union shipment to Atlanta. Several days later, the agency told him they had a short six months to deliver the animated special halfway through production.

When the team was still working with black and white illustrations, a mechanic executive Mendelsohn is almost certain it was Neil Reagan. The older brother of president Ronald Reagan showed up in Sebastopol to check on the progress.

He was put off by the slow pacing of the story. Mendelsohn, Melendez and Schultz assured him it would be better once there was music and color. The executive said he wouldn't tell the agency what he thought, because if he did, he was sure they would cancel the show.

So this thing's getting off to a rather inauspicious start. I guess a little bit like, like Charlie Brown himself. Let me, the story continues here. So I'll keep reading this for the music. The team had courted up, uh, had courted up and coming jazz musician Vince Giraldi who's cast your fate to the wind seemed to strike the same balance of somber enlightenment and childlike buoyancy that Schultz achieved in his comic.

But when they played the introduction song, as the children skated on a frozen pond, Mendelsohn realized it was way too slow and solemn. It was missing something. He sat down in his kitchen table and wrote out the words to Christmas time is here on an envelope.

Giraldi enlisted the children's choir of St. Paul's Episcopal church in San Rafael, California to sing the lyrics. Lyrics or not, the CBS executives didn't think jazz belonged in a cartoon. Now that's an interesting idea.

It's, um, a lot of people, maybe a lot of people do know this, but maybe some people don't the, uh, the soundtrack to a Charlie Brown Christmas special is just classic. And a number of years ago, I guess it was about 20 years back.

I worked in a music store for a while. And one of the hottest selling Christmas CDs that we had was, uh, was a Charlie Brown Christmas special. I worked over there at, uh, it was a borders, books, uh, borders, books, and music, uh, fairly close, uh, to here.

And, and it was, uh, you know, in my, back in the day, back in a day, um, I think it was the best book and music store in Cincinnati. I really do. Um, one of the things I always loved about borders is, is that they, they didn't just carry New York times bestsellers.

I mean, you know, they carried that stuff. They carried a lot of the, the, the big, you know, the commercial stuff that you would expect a, uh, maybe a chain bookstore to carry, but they had a deeper catalog.

Um, they really did. And you could find all kinds of books and music there that you couldn't get anywhere else. And, and of course, this was really before online shopping to take an office in the late nineties, early 2000s.

So, you know, Amazon was out there, but it wasn't what it, what it is today. And, you know, generally when people bought books and music, they still went to a bricks and mortar store and bought them. And I think their selection there was just outstanding.

There were some just great people that, that worked there. And I mean, that was honestly, if I had to pick one job that I really loved doing maybe more than any other, that was, that was the best job I ever had.

And, you know, and the funny thing about that, you know, working at borders, it was a friend that I met there that worked at same department, a fellow named Darian. And, uh, he and I, you know, we eventually left, uh, left the job there after a while.

And, and then we ended up several years later, we ended up working at another place together, um, doing 401k, uh, doing 401k work. And, uh, we, uh, we're both at that job for a number of years and, and we went our separate ways.

And then about three years ago, I got my current job with my current employer and I walk in the door and who do I see? I see Darian there. And, uh, so Darian and I, this was our third job together. Um, but we started out together at, at, uh, borders books and music over there at tri county, uh, about 20 years ago.

And that's, I guess, actually 21 years ago, I think it was 99 when I started there anyway, I think Darian had been there a little bit before I had, but, uh, but it was a 99 when I was working there and I was, I was going to school at a time.

I was, I was kind of doing a work school thing and that was my job to, to, to at least make a little bit of money on the side while it was, uh, it was in school. So, uh, anyway, what, what I was saying, what kind of brought, brought that up?

And what made me think about that is when I was working in the music store there, the, uh, one of the hottest sellers was a Charlie Brown Christmas. And I didn't even know that that had been released on CD, but I mean, people would just buy that like crazy.

And, and you know what, you know, you can't always say, well, because something sells a lot, that it's good. There's a lot of really garbage out there that, that sells a lot. Um, in this particular case, a Charlie Brown Christmas, uh, the, the soundtrack CD, great stuff.

And you know, if you, if you like Christmas music, if you don't have that, get it. Um, I can't recommend that to you strong enough. It's absolutely one of my favorite, uh, Christmas albums that there is, uh, really good stuff.

And like I say, it's jazz, you know, and, and as the article said, you know, lyrics are not CBS executives. Didn't think jazz belonged in a cartoon. Well, you know, it kind of, I can see why they would say that, you know, it's, it's easy to just kind of sit here in, you know, 50 some years later and say, well, boy, you know, you guys really blew it.

But you know, you try to put yourself in a position of a, uh, of a TV executive that doesn't, um, jazz, maybe a cartoon that about Christmas, how, how does that work anyway? Well, it does. And, and I'm not gonna, I'm gonna try to argue it too much here, but, um, just check it out and listen to it.

It's, uh, I love that album and I throw it on, uh, throw it on all the time, even sometimes when it's not Christmas. Um, so anyway, let's continue with, uh, with the New York magazine, uh, article here, lyrics are not the CBS executives.

Didn't think jazz belonged in a cartoon. They also challenged Schultz's decision to use untrained children instead of professional adult voice actors. They especially couldn't understand why children would use such big words.

Lucy quote, we all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket. It's run by a big Eastern syndicate, you know, Charlie Brown. Don't think of it as dust. Think of it as maybe the soil of some great past civilization, maybe the soil of ancient Babylon.

It staggers the imagination, maybe carrying soil that was trod upon by Solomon or even Nebuchadnezzar. This despite the fact for about 15 years, peanuts characters had spoken with advanced vocabularies.

Yeah. A peanuts is actually pretty sophisticated in, in a lot of ways. And, uh, that that's, uh, uh, certainly not aimed at, uh, it's the kind of thing that, uh, not only can kids enjoy it, but I think adults can as well.

Uh, and the article continues here. Schultz even got pushed back from his own team. Mendelsohn suggested the laugh track would save the show. And Schultz responded by standing up and walking out of the room when Schultz, a Sunday school teacher.

So the, uh, the, a man, uh, Charles Schultz, who wrote the peanuts, uh, peanuts, uh, series of peanuts cartoon, he was a Christian. And when the Schultz, a Sunday school teacher said Linus should recite from the gospel of Luke Mendelsohn and Melendez protested, we looked at each other and said, well, there goes our careers right down the drain.

Mendelsohn recalls nobody had ever animated anything from the Bible before. And we knew it probably wouldn't work. We were flabbergasted by it. And, uh, this is one of the things that, uh, that just really made a lot of people, even back in 1965, uncomfortable.

I thought, well, yeah, and there is, there's this scene kind of toward the end about maybe, you know, three quarters or four fifths of the way through. Um, where Linus does he, he reads from the gospel of Luke and he reads the, the portion about, uh, uh, you know, about the birth of Christ.

And he reads from the King James Bible. And this, this is in this, this Christmas special. And I think it maybe made a few people, uh, maybe a little bit uncomfortable. Um, reading that continuing with the article of New York magazine, of course, now Mendelsohn realized that Linus segment probably made the entire project.

Worked.

That 10 year old kid who recited that speech in the Bible is as good as any scene from Hamlet. He says when CBS finally saw the finished project, they were sure it was doomed. It was still too slow. There was no action.

The kids weren't polished. The jazz didn't belong. The general reaction was one of disappointment that didn't really translate as well as we thought it would. Former CBS executive Fred Silverman said in a 2015 short documentary, the making of a Charlie Brown Christmas, there are specific negative comments about the music, the piano music, some of the voice in which sounded kind of amateurish.

The Coca-Cola already bankrolled the program and it was listed in TV guides. CBS had the air of the show, but the execs were certain it would flop. Never to run again. Mendelsohn thought he had killed Charlie Brown.

When a Charlie Brown Christmas aired at 7 30 PM Eastern time on December 9th, 1965, half of American TV viewers tuned in. The reviews are outstanding. Washington post TV critic Lawrence Lark wrote, good old Charlie Brown, a natural born loser finally turned up a winner.

CBS immediately ordered four more specials. The show won a Peabody and Emmy award in the end Schultz Mendelsohn Melendez roundup making about 50 penis programs together. Most of them for CBS. We did whatever we wanted to do.

Mendelsohn said in our business, that's craziness. We did one on cancer. We did one on war. We were just given a free ticket for half the century and tried to honor that by being entertaining, but also being important and educational.

The only person who wasn't surprised with Schultz, the cartoonist was plagued by depression and self doubt his entire life, but he always had confidence in his characters and their stories. He believed everyone knew what it was like to fail despite doing everything right.

We hear about authors who write best about what they know. Steinbeck wrote about the West. Hemingway wrote about, well, everywhere, says Mendelsohn Schultz jumped ahead in school. So he was always the youngest and he endured a lot of bullying.

He felt a lot of loneliness. I think that was the bedrock of his whole philosophy. Schultz message of perseverance in the face of dejection always resonated with American audiences and reminded that we should keep kicking no matter how many times they pull the ball away.

If that sentiment happens to be particularly relevant this year, Mendelsohn is pleased. Hopefully he says this positive program will be soothing at a time of uncertainty. Well, um, I would say this, uh, for it, uh, advanced the calendar four years.

Uh, and I, I think we probably have, uh, have more uncertainty, uh, now than what we did then. But you know, of course, what's the, uh, the, uh, the great thing is, is, is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Of course, that, that is our comfort.

And, and when we talk about the gospel, of course, we have to talk about the incarnation. We have to talk about the birth of Christ. And that of course is what the, uh, the Charlie Brown Christmas focused on.

It was focused on the birth of Christ. So yeah, that, uh, the Charlie Brown Christmas special is certainly, you know, I say, if you had to push me and say, what's your, what's your absolute favorite Christmas movie?

Well, I'd have to tell you it's, it's that, you know, historically speaking, there have been, uh, some, some significant events that have taken place on, uh, on Christmas, uh, on or around Christmas. For instance, if, uh, in American history, uh, George Washington crossed the Delaware river on Christmas night in 1776, and he successfully attacked the Hessian troops that were stationed at Trenton, New Jersey.

So, you know, the, he won a victory in, in overall, probably in the, the war, the war effort, the American revolution, and maybe it wasn't the most significant battle of all, but it was a chance for George Washington to kind of show his chops as a commander and a chance for the, the American army to prove that it could actually win a battle because there are a lot of people that didn't think they could.

Uh, this was very early on in the war. And, you know, the Americans were kind of the ragtag army, you know, they were a bunch of militiamen and they were going up against the, uh, the regular British army and they weren't doing very well.

And this was a, an opportunity for, uh, for the American army to, to show that it, it could pull off a successful operation. And that was, uh, they, uh, actually crossed the rivers on, uh, the evening of, uh, December 25th.

And the, the, uh, the attack on the, uh, the Hessian troops in Trenton took place, uh, on, uh, on the morning of the 26th. Uh, another noteworthy event, and this is, uh, actually, um, also war related was the, uh, there's the famous Christmas truce in, in World War II.

And, uh, this is something maybe you've heard about. There's a, an article that I found, there's a lot of articles about this, about the Christmas truce in 1914. Uh, this is just one that, that I happened to find that had some interesting things in it.

Um, it's, uh, found it's in the, from the Guardian. And let's see, that was dated back, um, December 23rd, 2015. And the headline says, soldiers letters bring first World War Christmas truce to life. Private Frederick Davies of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers wrote home about life on the Western front and correspondence donated to the Imperial War Museum.

And, uh, let's read a little bit of this, this particular article. A poignant description of British and German soldiers sharing meager rations rations across no man's land during the famous 1914 Christmas day truce of the first World War is contained in newly revealed collection of letters.

Frederick James Davies, a private, the second battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers wrote home about giving SIGs, jam and corned beef to the frontline enemy during the celebrated impromptu ceasefire, which saw some soldiers, some soldiers play football.

Davies from Lampeter Wales told his mother how both Germans and British soldiers climbed out of the trenches in Northern France to exchange gifts and messages of goodwill. He had a good chat with the Germans on Christmas day.

He wrote in letters recently donated to the Imperial War Museum. There were only 50 yards from us in the trenches. They came out and we went to meet them. We shook hands with them. He wrote, they also gave us cigars, but we didn't have much, but they didn't have much food.

I think they're hard up for it. They were fed up with the war. He described coming out of the trenches since Sunday for a few days rest. It's nice to have a night's sleep, but the wet from the web, but we still sleep in our clothes, but I'm happy through it all.

It's no use being otherwise. He added, don't you worry about me. You buck up till I come home before signing off from your loving son, Fred. But, uh, so yeah, this is, uh, some, uh, some letters from a soldier who was actually there, um, at the, uh, at the, uh, the Christmas truce.

So yeah, that, that was, uh, that's a famous thing. And like I said, sometimes it seems that the Christmas has a way of, I don't know, uh, when I say soften people's hearts, I don't know if that's, maybe that is the right word for it, but I think it's a time when, uh, perhaps people maybe look a little bit more kindly on others than, uh, than at other times of year.

And I don't think that that's a bad thing at all. So that's another thing that I do love about Christmas. Uh, so that was another, um, significant event. He had Washington crossing to Delaware. He had the famous 1914 Christian, uh, Christmas truce between the, uh, between the, uh, uh, the Germans.

It was mostly the British troops. I was reading and I found a, an article. I was going to see if I can find it here. I thought that I saved it. Um, um, the, uh, they, they said that that in the areas where it was the French and the Germans going on opposite sides, that there really wasn't a lot of, uh, that that really didn't take place, but it was, it was in the areas where the Germans and the, uh, the British in particular, the Saxon regiments, they said, uh, who were, uh, I guess kind of drove some of that.