In Europe in 1914, when Christmas was still considered to be a holy day and an occasion for peace rather than an excuse to party, the combatants of World War I observed a truce in honor of the holiday. The last surviving Allied veteran to witness the 1914 Christmas Peace has died at the age of 109.
"Alfred Anderson was the oldest man in Scotland and the last known surviving Scottish veteran of the war.
"’I remember the silence, the eerie sound of silence,’ he was quoted as saying in the Observer newspaper last year, describing the day-long Christmas Truce of 1914, which began spontaneously when German soldiers sang carols in the trenches, and British soldiers responded in English.
"’All I’d heard for two months in the trenches was the hissing, cracking and whining of bullets in flight, machinegun fire and distant German voices. But there was a dead silence that morning across the land as far as you could see.’
"’We shouted "Merry Christmas" even though nobody felt merry. The silence ended early in the afternoon and the killing started again.’"
May Mr. Anderson and all of the witnesses of that Christmas Peace finally be reunited this holiday season to witness the everlasting peace of heaven.
I heard a song about this event on Raymond Arroyo’s Christmas show some years ago on EWTN. Here’s a link to the lyrics:
http://www.worldwar1.com/sfcitt.htm