Christmas in the Trenches

The scene is one of quiet and cold; "the frozen fields of France were still; no songs of peace were sung."

The British troops are startled when their front line sentry cries out that a lone German figure has left their trench and is marching alone across No Man's Land, unarmed and with a truce flag.

There, they trade chocolate and cigarettes and exchange photographs of their families back home, at which all of the men are struck by how similar their enemy is to themselves.

But, McCutcheon sings, "the question haunted every man who lived that wondrous night; 'whose family have I fixed within my sight?'"

[1] He also tells of performing the song at a small festival in Denmark, in a town close to its border with Germany, and seeing a group of old men gathered at each concert, who turned out to be German veterans who had experienced the Christmas Truce.