Unveiling the magic of Christmas celebrations: 8 facts

Christmas Day in World War I

Coinciding with 24-25 December 1914, Christmas Eve and Day, the Christmas Truce saw a temporary halt to the fighting on parts of the Western Front. The truce lasted until New Year’s Day. On Christmas Eve, many German and British troops sang Christmas carols to each other. At the first light of dawn on Christmas Day, some German soldiers emerged from their trenches and approached the Allied lines across no-man’s-land, calling out “Merry Christmas” in their enemies’ native tongues. At first, Allied forces got scared and took it as a war tactic, but after seeing the Germans unarmed, they climbed out of their trenches. The men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings and sang carols and songs. Some soldiers used this short-lived ceasefire for a more somber task – the retrieval of the bodies of fellow combatants who had fallen within the no-man’s land between the lines. This so-called Christmas Truce of 1914 came only after five months of the outbreak of World War in Europe. At the time of World War I, the soldiers on the Western part did not expect to celebrate Christmas on the battlefield, but the event was a testimony to the fact that even the war couldn’t destroy the spirit of Christmas.