The Second day of December

I found this story on the web and I thought it was very good.

The Christmas Truce
By: David G. Stratman

It was December 25, 1914, only 5 months into World War I. German, British and French soldiers, already sick and tired of senseless killing, disobeyed their superiors and fraternized with "the enemy" along two-thirds of the Wester Front (a crim punishable by death in times of war). German troops held Christmas trees up out of the trenches with signs, "Merry Christmas."

"You no shoot, we no shoot." Thousands of troops streamed across a no-man's land strew with rotting corpses. They sang Christmas carols, exchanged photographs of loved ones back home, shared rations, played football, even roasted some pigs. Soldiers embraced men they had been trying to kill a few short hours before. They agreed to warn each other if the top brass forced them to fire their weapons, and aim high.

A shudder ran through the high command on either side. Here was a disaster in the making: soldiers declaring their brotherhood with each other and refusing to fight. Generals on both sides declared this spontaneous peacemaking to be treasonous and subject to court martial. By March 1915 the fraternization movement had been eradicated and the killing machine put back in full operation. By the time of the armistice in 1918, fifteen million would be slaughtered.

Not many people have heard the story of the Christmas Truce. On Christmas Day, 1988, a story in the Boston Globe mentioned that a local FM radio host played "Christmas in the Trenches," a ballad about the Christmas Truce, several times and was startled by the effect. The song became the most requested recording during the holidays in Boston on several FM stations. "Even more startling than the number of requests I get is the reaction to the ballad afterward by callers who hadn't heard it before," said the radio host. "They telephone me deeply moved, sometimes in tears, asking, 'What the hell did I just hear?' "

I think I know why the callers were in tears. The Christmas Truce story goes against most of what we have been taught about people. It gives us a glimpse of the world as we wish it could be and says, "This really happened once." It reminds us of those thoughts we keep hidden away, out of range of the TV and newspaper stories that tell us how trivial and mean human life is. It is like hearing that our deepest wishes really are true: the world really could be different.

I found this story and I really liked it. I hope you like it too and that it puts you in the Christmas spirit!!

Starting the Christmas Season

I thought that it would be a good idea to start the Christmas Season off with a wonderful Christmas story. Every day for the next 25 days I am going to post a new story or song to stay in the Christmas Spirit. Here is my first story.

The Gold Wrapping paper

Once up a time, a man punished his five-year-old daughter for using up the family's only roll of expensive gold wrapping paper before Christmas.

Money was tight, so he became even more upset when on Christmas Eve, he saw that the child had used the expensive gold paper to decorate a large shoebox she had put under the Christmas tree.

Nevertheless, the next morning the little girl, filled with excitement, brought the gift box to her father and said, "This is for you, Daddy!"

As he opened the box, the father was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, now regretting how he had punished her.

But when he opened the shoebox, he found it was empty and again his anger flared. "Don't you know, young lady," he said harshly, "when you give someone a present there's supposed to be something inside the package!"

The little girl looked up at him with sad tears rolling from her eyes and whispered: "Daddy, it's not empty. I blew kisses into it until it was all full."

The father was crushed. He fell on his knees and put his arms around his precious little girl. He begged her to forgive him for his unnecessary anger.

An accident took the life of the child only a short time later. It is told that the father kept this little gold box by his bed for all the years of his life. Whenever he was discouraged or faced difficult problems, he would open the box, take out an imaginary kiss, and remember the love of this beautiful child who had put it there.

In a very real sense, each of us as a human being have been given an invisible golden box filled with unconditional love and kisses from our children, family, friends, and God.

There is no more precious possession anyone could hold.

An update on life...

I have been horrible at writing on my blog in the past few months. So, I thought I would just catch you up on a few things. Nothing much has really happened. I've just been busy at school. My classes are going well. I like most of them except Education Technology and Math 108. The teacher for Education Technology just moves really fast and he is not very clear or concise about his directions. Math 108 is fine. It's just really easy for me. I hate going to the class because it's a repeat of 7th grade. lol. You may not believe me but it really is true. Other than those two classes, classes are going well. I have been regularly going into an elementary school. My teacher's name is Mrs. Lecheminant. She's great and she's a really good mentor for me. I've taught her class twice and she's told me what I did well and how I could improve. It's been a really good experience.

My roommates are pretty great too. We all get along most of the time and I am so grateful for that because it was not like that in a couple of my other apartments. It's been a pretty good semester in that regard as well.

Now I will tell you a little about my Thanksgiving Break (since nothing exciting really happened other than that). On Friday, I left for the Salt Lake Airport around 2:00. We got there around 6:00 and I waited around the airport for awhile because my flight didn't leave until 9:00 (or something like that). As I was sitting in the airport, I realized that I didn't have my debit card on me...I was really bummed about that because I was so hungry and I wanted to get dinner...but I couldn't. I got into Washington around 11:30 or so. We had to stay on the plane for about 30 minutes because the sky bridge was broken. Then we had to carry all of our luggage down the stairs because the escalator was broken. I was so relieved when I was able to get into my car and sit down and relax for a minute. Since I hadn't eaten anything, dad got me McDonalds on our way home. Jackson and Josh stayed up until I got home but Zach had a little problem with that. He fell asleep a few minutes before I got home...lol.

Then, on Saturday I cleaned the house. I needed to clean because mom said she would pay me to be her housekeeper before our family got here. So, I worked on that all day. We also went to see the New Harry Potter movie. It was SO good! While we were in Harry Potter I saw one of my friends. Her name is Kristen Gilbert. It was so random to see her there but it was fun to catch up for a minute.

On Sunday we went to church. It was fun to see everyone from my home ward as well. I went to Young Womens with my mom so I could see all of them as well. Then we went home and I cleaned some more. For dinner mom made Stake and potatoes.

Then, Monday was my least favorite day. I got my wisdom teeth out. I went in at 10:00 and I was out by 10:45. I had anesthesia so I don't remember anything that happened. I only got the two top teeth out so it wasn't too bad. I wasn't really swollen or anything either. I slept for a lot of the day because I was worn out from the anesthesia. As the day went on I started to clean again. I didn't do much because I didn't feel good but I did what I could. Then, during the night I had some weird dreams. I think the anesthesia affected me that way. I kept waking up because I thought somebody was watching me. It was really strange.

On Tuesday I got a haircut. My dad drove me because it was snowing and I was nervous to drive in the snow. I got more highlights and low lights in my hair. That night Linda and Andy's family (and Grandma) got there. It took them 22 hours to drive from American Fork, UT to Marysville, WA. It should take about 13 hours. That's a LONG drive!! They were so grateful when they got here.

The rest of the week wasn't too exciting. We hung around the house a lot because the roads weren't too good. We went out to dinner on Saturday night. We went to the Buzz In. It was really good! Then, on Thanksgiving we had a great dinner made by my mom, grandma and Linda. YUM!! Then we stayed in and watched a movie as a family. The Follett's came over later that night and we played games. It was pretty fun! Then, on Friday we went Black Friday shopping in the morning. When we got back we just hung around the house and then we went out to dinner on Friday night. We went to the King Buffet. It's a Chinese Buffet and it's delicious! Jackson got baptized on Saturday and it was a great experience. I played the piano for it. That was good practice too. After the baptism, the Atwoods left and we just hung around the house. I started packing because I left on Sunday. I left at 7:30 in the morning and I didn't get back to Rexburg until 8:00 pm. It was LONG day of traveling. I kind of want to be back at home. I'm not a big fan of Rexburg, but I will get over that. It was a great week!

Now it's December 1st and we only have 3 weeks of school left and then I can go home!! I'm SO excited!!!