christmas is coming

minxie

guys and girls
christmas is coming around again...
whats the best and worst present you ever got???
my aunt for years used to always get me a jumper she never
failed to amuse me, i remember a blue woolly one with huge sticky-out
sheep on it...:o and i was made wear it on xmas day(the shame)
best was my mum bought me an old nissan micra which i learned to drive in... i thought i was the queen bee.....:):)

deleriumtremens

I LOVE CHRISTMAS LIKE A FAT KID LOVES CAKE!!!!!!!:D:D:D

KnifeWRENCH

I've never gotten any really "bad" presents, I got some presents I never used, or very rarely used, but I never got anything awful.

Best was probably my laptop I got last year. I think I've used it at least once every day since I got it, don't know how I lived 18 years without one!

minxie

square_igloo wrote: »

I've never gotten any really "bad" presents, I got some presents I never used, or very rarely used, but I never got anything awful.

Best was probably my laptop I got last year. I think I've used it at least once every day since I got it, don't know how I lived 18 years without one!

am the same... only got one last oct
sure look at us now :)

Danbo!

Aunt bought me a rip-off of connect 4, called 5-in-a-row! (exclamation mark included) for my birthday years back.

Later that year, christmas day, I got the exact same game from her.

I should also mention, that by "later that year", I meant 11 days later.

KnifeWRENCH

minxie1 wrote: »

am the same... only got one last oct
sure look at us now :)

Mmm look at us now is right! Both of us on laptops, on Boards, on a Saturday night.....

....on second thoughts, perhaps that's not something to cheer about.

MagicMarker

Some big, fat, hairy fella in a red suit once emptied his sac onto my floor.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

Biggins

Worst: Old style hankies (from an aunt who never had kids herself) when I was a teen.
Best: Sinclair ZX81 - boy, did that light a fire in me to learn more about computers...

marcsignal

skanger nativity scene

peanuthead

Id feel bad naming something I was given as "the worst present ever" I would hate to think that anyone would describe something that I got them that way, so I won't do it. I just won't. But the best I ever got.... I remember going mental after finding an EAST 17 concert tape in my stocking. Besides that, I would have to say a beautiful necklace I was given by the OH

chaotic_vr

Can't think of a worst one. Some I never used....
Best one: My Explorer, best guitar I've ever had.

Kintarō Hattori

Best was an original Playstaion, man that was an exciting christmas morning.

Worst - don't think I ever had anything really bad. A friend of the family always used to give me expensive wolly jumpers which I never wore and just gave to my father. They really were old man kinda jumpers.

Mark200

I got a really ****ty new phone one Christmas morning off my parents. I honestly tried my best to force a smile but I couldn't. My mam told me anyway that my dad was supposed to get me a different one but he left it too late and they were all sold out when he went to the shop. So I didn't feel as guilty anymore, and they brought it back and got me the other phone.

AlphaMike

Hey! This is totally non-connected to this thread but I need your help!

Can anyone tell me where you can buy the figures for a nativity crib? I'm looking for some fairly decent figures and am willing to spend a couple of quid if neccessary?

I'm looking for carved wood maybe painted figures if possible of the usual crib scene....
Mary, Joseph, Jesus, 3 wise men, shephards, donkey blah blah blah!

Thanks a mill!

Guru Maith Agut

AlphaMike wrote: »

Hey! This is totally non-connected to this thread

You're right, it is! :rolleyes:

Ross_Mahon

I'm the oldest in my family and tend to get up last on Christmas morning, One year, The oul one buys us an album each based on our music interests, There's a clubland one, A NOW 56 and a Madonna album.

What do you think they left me with?

cmcsoft

The best present I ever got was a pre computer 1000!! (I think that's what it was called anyway)
I don't know what the worst was off the top of my head....

Zangetsu

Best was a PS1, I remember spending hours and hours and hours and hours on that thing! 3D graphics? HOLY ****!

(Had a NES before that)

Can't remember the worst present, never really thought of any present as a bad preset, its something I didn't have previously so how could it be bad!

Terry

Mark200 wrote: »

I got a really ****ty new phone one Christmas morning off my parents. I honestly tried my best to force a smile but I couldn't. My mam told me anyway that my dad was supposed to get me a different one but he left it too late and they were all sold out when he went to the shop. So I didn't feel as guilty anymore, and they brought it back and got me the other phone.

Seriously?

I really don't know where to start with that.

AnonoBoy

minxie1 wrote: »

christmas is coming

Are we sure about this? I haven't heard anything about it.

AnonoBoy

Terry wrote: »

Seriously?

I really don't know where to start with that.

When I read that post I thought he was trying to be smart. Maybe not.

i_love_toast

haha i remember coming into school after christmas and the usual asking around what did ya get what did ya get carry on.one poor fella in the class got a sega megadrive off his parents now this was about 5 years after they were released think playstation 2 was out and all at the time.felt real bad for him!!

AnonoBoy

i_love_toast wrote: »

.one poor fella in the class got a sega megadrive off his parents now this was about 5 years after they were released think playstation 2 was out and all at the time

I think your timeframe is all messed up there buddy. The PS2 came out about 10 years after the Megadrive.

BaconZombie

Mods please lock this thread until Dec 24th.
It is still fecking only November FFS?!!?!?!?!?

minxie1 wrote: »

guys and girls
christmas is coming around again...
whats the best and worst present you ever got???
my aunt for years used to always get me a jumper she never
failed to amuse me, i remember a blue woolly one with huge sticky-out
sheep on it...:o and i was made wear it on xmas day(the shame)
best was my mum bought me an old nissan micra which i learned to drive in... i thought i was the queen bee.....:):)

Miguel_Sanchez

Ross_Mahon wrote: »

There's a clubland one, A NOW 56 and a Madonna album.

What do you think they left me with?

A **** album no matter what?

Terry

BOFH_139 wrote: »

Mods please lock this thread until Dec 24th.
It is still fecking only November FFS?!!?!?!?!?

Ok.

minxie

its back.....

omgiluvxmas

championship manager 02. the game itself turned out to be good more than a year later when i got an actual real computer but the torture when i put it in the cd drive and it took about 5 hours to load one league.

4zn76tysfajdxp

Mark200 wrote: »

I got a really ****ty new phone one Christmas morning off my parents. I honestly tried my best to force a smile but I couldn't. My mam told me anyway that my dad was supposed to get me a different one but he left it too late and they were all sold out when he went to the shop. So I didn't feel as guilty anymore, and they brought it back and got me the other phone.

I once asked my parents for a particular phone one christmas which they refused to buy for me because it was too expensive. They bought the same phone for my younger brother that same year and promptly gave it to him a week early which was perplexing.

The worst present I ever got was a kite from my older brother when I was sixteen or seventeen. I wasn't (unjustifiably) upset/angry or anything, it was just bemusing to recieve a kite as a present in December.

The worst present I have given anyone was in college when my class was doing a "Secret Santa" thing amongst ourselves with a €5 limit. I assumed it was just supposed to be a gag gift thing so I took a €3 black and white photo of myself in one of those passport picture machines, signed it, and put it in a €2 frame wrapped in the pages of an issue of the Galway Advertiser.

The girl I gave it to never spoke to me again after that.

:|

AlphaMike wrote: »

Hey! This is totally non-connected to this thread but I need your help!

Can anyone tell me where you can buy the figures for a nativity crib? I'm looking for some fairly decent figures and am willing to spend a couple of quid if neccessary?

I'm looking for carved wood maybe painted figures if possible of the usual crib scene....
Mary, Joseph, Jesus, 3 wise men, shephards, donkey blah blah blah!

Thanks a mill!

pfft make your own. Our crib has two jesus figures, in the corner, and a mighty max in the crib. And a shepherd made out of a toilet roll holder. And a camel.

seriously.

_blank_

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat
Please put a penny in the old man's hat
If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do
If you haven't got a ha'penny, a farthing will do
If you haven't got a farthing, then God bless you!

Tom65

I got a bitchin' toy machine gun one year. 20 minutes later someone in my house had broken it. I was devastated, and there went my career in the army.

Fizman

Last year one of my mates bought me something called 'The Clone'. Lets just say its designed to replicate a certain part of the female anatomy! Batteries n all.

I had moved home for a few nights for xmas, and because there was no label on it, I ended up opening it in front of my parents and 2 younger sisters!! Morto!

My dad was well jealous. :pac:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Artificial_vagina-4.jpg/250px-

He got promoted to best bud!

Dennis the Stone

Got this present the other day from a friend:


It's great. If you don't believe me, check out this quote on Amazon:

some weirdo wrote:

Yesterday, I was given this CD as a gift....I can also say, without pausing or hesitating that listening to this CD is quite LITERALY like thrashing around uncontrollably in sexual chocolate.

Not since Paul Shane sang 'You've lost that loving feeling' many years ago on Pebble Mill have I felt such sexual excitement. It was tantamount to being gently fellated by Angeline Jolie, twice. This CD has left me feeling both incredibly aroused and also completely at peace with myself, the world and stuff.

cherryghost

One thing that gets me every year is the Christmas truce. I love it!

The Christmas Truce, 1914

You are standing up to your knees in the slime of a waterlogged trench. It is the evening of 24 December 1914 and you are on the dreaded Western Front.
Stooped over, you wade across to the firing step and take over the watch. Having exchanged pleasantries, your bleary-eyed and mud-spattered colleague shuffles off towards his dug out. Despite the horrors and the hardships, your morale is high and you believe that in the New Year the nation's army march towards a glorious victory.
But for now you stamp your feet in a vain attempt to keep warm. All is quiet when jovial voices call out from both friendly and enemy trenches. Then the men from both sides start singing carols and songs. Next come requests not to fire, and soon the unthinkable happens: you start to see the shadowy shapes of soldiers gathering together in no-man's land laughing, joking and sharing gifts.
Many have exchanged cigarettes, the lit ends of which burn brightly in the inky darkness. Plucking up your courage, you haul yourself up and out of the trench and walk towards the foe...

When enemies meet
The meeting of enemies as friends in no-man's land was experienced by hundreds, if not thousands, of men on the Western Front during Christmas 1914. Today, 90 years after it occurred, the event is seen as a shining episode of sanity from among the bloody chapters of World War One - a spontaneous effort by the lower ranks to create a peace that could have blossomed were it not for the interference of generals and politicians.
The reality of the Christmas Truce, however, is a slightly less romantic and a more down to earth story. It was an organic affair that in some spots hardly registered a mention and in others left a profound impact upon those who took part.
Many accounts were rushed, confused or contradictory. Others, written long after the event, are weighed down by hindsight. These difficulties aside, the true story is still striking precisely because of its rag-tagged nature: it is more 'human' and therefore all the more potent.
Months beforehand, millions of servicemen, reservists and volunteers from all over the continent had rushed enthusiastically to the banners of war: the atmosphere was one of holiday rather than conflict.
But it was not long before the jovial façade was torn away. Armies equipped with repeating rifles, machine guns and a vast array of artillery tore chunks out of each other, and thousands upon thousands of men perished.
To protect against the threat of this vast firepower, the soldiers were ordered to dig in and prepare for next year's offensives, which most men believed would break the deadlock and deliver victory.
The early trenches were often hasty creations and poorly constructed; if the trench was badly sighted it could become a sniping hot spot. In bad weather (the winter of 1914 was a dire one) the positions could flood and fall in. The soldiers - unequipped to face the rigours of the cold and rain - found themselves wallowing in a freezing mire of mud and the decaying bodies of the fallen.
The man at the Front could not help but have a degree of sympathy for his opponents who were having just as miserable a time as they were.
Another factor that broke down the animosity between the opposing armies were the surroundings. In 1914 the men at the front could still see the vestiges of civilisation. Villages, although badly smashed up, were still standing. Fields, although pitted with shell-holes, had not been turned into muddy lunarscapes.
Thus the other world - the civilian world - and the social mores and manners that went with it was still present at the front. Also lacking was the pain, misery and hatred that years of bloody war build up. Then there was the desire, on all sides, to see the enemy up close - was he really as bad as the politicians, papers and priests were saying?
It was a combination of these factors, and many more minor ones, that made the Christmas Truce of 1914 possible.
On the eve of the Truce, the British Army (still a relatively small presence on the Western Front) was manning a stretch of the line running south from the infamous Ypres salient for 27 miles to the La Bassee Canal.


Christmas greetings
Along the front the enemy was sometimes no more than 70, 50 or even 30 yards away. Both Tommy and Fritz could quite easily hurl greetings and insults to one another, and, importantly, come to tacit agreements not to fire. Incidents of temporary truces and outright fraternisation were more common at this stage in the war than many people today realise - even units that had just taken part in a series of futile and costly assaults, were still willing to talk and come to arrangements with their opponents.
As Christmas approached the festive mood and the desire for a lull in the fighting increased as parcels packed with goodies from home started to arrive. On top of this came gifts care of the state. Tommy received plum puddings and 'Princess Mary boxes'; a metal case engraved with an outline of George V's daughter and filled with chocolates and butterscotch, cigarettes and tobacco, a picture card of Princess Mary and a facsimile of George V's greeting to the troops. 'May God protect you and bring you safe home,' it said.
Not to be outdone, Fritz received a present from the Kaiser, the Kaiserliche, a large meerschaum pipe for the troops and a box of cigars for NCOs and officers. Towns, villages and cities, and numerous support associations on both sides also flooded the front with gifts of food, warm clothes and letters of thanks.
The Belgians and French also received goods, although not in such an organised fashion as the British or Germans. For these nations the Christmas of 1914 was tinged with sadness - their countries were occupied. It is no wonder that the Truce, although it sprung up in some spots on French and Belgian lines, never really caught hold as it did in the British sector.
With their morale boosted by messages of thanks and their bellies fuller than normal, and with still so much Christmas booty to hand, the season of goodwill entered the trenches. A British Daily Telegraph correspondent wrote that on one part of the line the Germans had managed to slip a chocolate cake into British trenches.
Even more amazingly, it was accompanied with a message asking for a ceasefire later that evening so they could celebrate the festive season and their Captain's birthday. They proposed a concert at 7.30pm when candles, the British were told, would be placed on the parapets of their trenches.
The British accepted the invitation and offered some tobacco as a return present. That evening, at the stated time, German heads suddenly popped up and started to sing. Each number ended with a round of applause from both sides.
The Germans then asked the British to join in. At this point, one very mean-spirited Tommy shouted: 'We'd rather die than sing German.' To which a German joked aloud: 'It would kill us if you did'.

Christmas eve
December 24 was a good day weather-wise: the rain had given way to clear skies.
On many stretches of the Front the crack of rifles and the dull thud of shells ploughing into the ground continued, but at a far lighter level than normal. In other sectors there was an unnerving silence that was broken by the singing and shouting drifting over, in the main, from the German trenches.
Along many parts of the line the Truce was spurred on with the arrival in the German trenches of miniature Christmas trees - Tannenbaum. The sight these small pines, decorated with candles and strung along the German parapets, captured the Tommies' imagination, as well as the men of the Indian corps who were reminded of the sacred Hindu festival of light.
It was the perfect excuse for the opponents to start shouting to one another, to start singing and, in some areas, to pluck up the courage to meet one another in no-man's land.
By now, the British high command - comfortably 'entrenched' in a luxurious châteaux 27 miles behind the front - was beginning to hear of the fraternisation.
Stern orders were issued by the commander of the BEF, Sir John French against such behaviour. Other 'brass-hats' (as the Tommies nick-named their high-ranking officers and generals), also made grave pronouncements on the dangers and consequences of parleying with the Germans.
However, there were many high-ranking officers who took a surprisingly relaxed view of the situation. If anything, they believed it would at least offer their men an opportunity to strengthen their trenches. This mixed stance meant that very few officers and men involved in the Christmas Truce were disciplined.
Interestingly, the German High Command's ambivalent attitude towards the Truce mirrored that of the British.


Chistmas Day
Christmas day began quietly but once the sun was up the fraternisation began. Again songs were sung and rations thrown to one another. It was not long before troops and officers started to take matters into their own hands and ventured forth. No-man's land became something of a playground.
Men exchanged gifts and buttons. In one or two places soldiers who had been barbers in civilian times gave free haircuts. One German, a juggler and a showman, gave an impromptu, and given the circumstances, somewhat surreal performance of his routine in the centre of no-man's land.
Captain Sir Edward Hulse of the Scots Guards, in his famous account, remembered the approach of four unarmed Germans at 08.30. He went out to meet them with one of his ensigns. 'Their spokesmen,' Hulse wrote, 'started off by saying that he thought it only right to come over and wish us a happy Christmas, and trusted us implicitly to keep the truce. He came from Suffolk where he had left his best girl and a 3 ½ h.p. motor-bike!'
Having raced off to file a report at headquarters, Hulse returned at 10.00 to find crowds of British soldiers and Germans out together chatting and larking about in no-man's land, in direct contradiction to his orders.
Not that Hulse seemed to care about the fraternisation in itself - the need to be seen to follow orders was his concern. Thus he sought out a German officer and arranged for both sides to return to their lines.
While this was going on he still managed to keep his ears and eyes open to the fantastic events that were unfolding.
'Scots and Huns were fraternizing in the most genuine possible manner. Every sort of souvenir was exchanged addresses given and received, photos of families shown, etc. One of our fellows offered a German a cigarette; the German said, "Virginian?" Our fellow said, "Aye, straight-cut", the German said "No thanks, I only smoke Turkish!"... It gave us all a good laugh.'
Hulse's account was in part a letter to his mother, who in turn sent it on to the newspapers for publication, as was the custom at the time. Sadly, Hulse was killed in March 1915.

Germany 3, England 2
On many parts of the line the Christmas Day truce was initiated through sadder means. Both sides saw the lull as a chance to get into no-man's land and seek out the bodies of their compatriots and give them a decent burial. Once this was done the opponents would inevitably begin talking to one another.
The 6th Gordon Highlanders, for example, organised a burial truce with the enemy. After the gruesome task of laying friends and comrades to rest was complete, the fraternisation began.
With the Truce in full swing up and down the line there were a number of recorded games of soccer, although these were really just 'kick-abouts' rather than a structured match.
On January 1, 1915, the London Times published a letter from a major in the Medical Corps reporting that in his sector the British played a game against the Germans opposite and were beaten 3-2.
Kurt Zehmisch of the 134th Saxons recorded in his diary: 'The English brought a soccer ball from the trenches, and pretty soon a lively game ensued. How marvellously wonderful, yet how strange it was. The English officers felt the same way about it. Thus Christmas, the celebration of Love, managed to bring mortal enemies together as friends for a time.'
The Truce lasted all day; in places it ended that night, but on other sections of the line it held over Boxing Day and in some areas, a few days more. In fact, there parts on the front where the absence of aggressive behaviour was conspicuous well into 1915.
Captain J C Dunn, the Medical Officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, whose unit had fraternised and received two barrels of beer from the Saxon troops opposite, recorded how hostilities re-started on his section of the front.
Dunn wrote: 'At 8.30 I fired three shots in the air and put up a flag with "Merry Christmas" on it, and I climbed on the parapet. He [the Germans] put up a sheet with "Thank you" on it, and the German Captain appeared on the parapet. We both bowed and saluted and got down into our respective trenches, and he fired two shots in the air, and the War was on again.'
The war was indeed on again, for the Truce had no hope of being maintained. Despite being wildly reported in Britain and to a lesser extent in Germany, the troops and the populations of both countries were still keen to prosecute the conflict.
Today, pragmatists read the Truce as nothing more than a 'blip' - a temporary lull induced by the season of goodwill, but willingly exploited by both sides to better their defences and eye out one another's positions. Romantics assert that the Truce was an effort by normal men to bring about an end to the slaughter.
In the public's mind the facts have become irrevocably mythologized, and perhaps this is the most important legacy of the Christmas Truce today. In our age of uncertainty, it comforting to believe, regardless of the real reasoning and motives, that soldiers and officers told to hate, loathe and kill, could still lower their guns and extend the hand of goodwill, peace, love and Christmas cheer.

minxie

cherryghost wrote: »

One thing that gets me every year is the Christmas truce. I love it!

The Christmas Truce, 1914

You are standing up to your knees in the slime of a waterlogged trench. It is the evening of 24 December 1914 and you are on the dreaded Western Front.
Stooped over, you wade across to the firing step and take over the watch. Having exchanged pleasantries, your bleary-eyed and mud-spattered colleague shuffles off towards his dug out. Despite the horrors and the hardships, your morale is high and you believe that in the New Year the nation's army march towards a glorious victory.
But for now you stamp your feet in a vain attempt to keep warm. All is quiet when jovial voices call out from both friendly and enemy trenches. Then the men from both sides start singing carols and songs. Next come requests not to fire, and soon the unthinkable happens: you start to see the shadowy shapes of soldiers gathering together in no-man's land laughing, joking and sharing gifts.
Many have exchanged cigarettes, the lit ends of which burn brightly in the inky darkness. Plucking up your courage, you haul yourself up and out of the trench and walk towards the foe...

When enemies meet
The meeting of enemies as friends in no-man's land was experienced by hundreds, if not thousands, of men on the Western Front during Christmas 1914. Today, 90 years after it occurred, the event is seen as a shining episode of sanity from among the bloody chapters of World War One - a spontaneous effort by the lower ranks to create a peace that could have blossomed were it not for the interference of generals and politicians.
The reality of the Christmas Truce, however, is a slightly less romantic and a more down to earth story. It was an organic affair that in some spots hardly registered a mention and in others left a profound impact upon those who took part.
Many accounts were rushed, confused or contradictory. Others, written long after the event, are weighed down by hindsight. These difficulties aside, the true story is still striking precisely because of its rag-tagged nature: it is more 'human' and therefore all the more potent.
Months beforehand, millions of servicemen, reservists and volunteers from all over the continent had rushed enthusiastically to the banners of war: the atmosphere was one of holiday rather than conflict.
But it was not long before the jovial façade was torn away. Armies equipped with repeating rifles, machine guns and a vast array of artillery tore chunks out of each other, and thousands upon thousands of men perished.
To protect against the threat of this vast firepower, the soldiers were ordered to dig in and prepare for next year's offensives, which most men believed would break the deadlock and deliver victory.
The early trenches were often hasty creations and poorly constructed; if the trench was badly sighted it could become a sniping hot spot. In bad weather (the winter of 1914 was a dire one) the positions could flood and fall in. The soldiers - unequipped to face the rigours of the cold and rain - found themselves wallowing in a freezing mire of mud and the decaying bodies of the fallen.
The man at the Front could not help but have a degree of sympathy for his opponents who were having just as miserable a time as they were.
Another factor that broke down the animosity between the opposing armies were the surroundings. In 1914 the men at the front could still see the vestiges of civilisation. Villages, although badly smashed up, were still standing. Fields, although pitted with shell-holes, had not been turned into muddy lunarscapes.
Thus the other world - the civilian world - and the social mores and manners that went with it was still present at the front. Also lacking was the pain, misery and hatred that years of bloody war build up. Then there was the desire, on all sides, to see the enemy up close - was he really as bad as the politicians, papers and priests were saying?
It was a combination of these factors, and many more minor ones, that made the Christmas Truce of 1914 possible.
On the eve of the Truce, the British Army (still a relatively small presence on the Western Front) was manning a stretch of the line running south from the infamous Ypres salient for 27 miles to the La Bassee Canal.


Christmas greetings
Along the front the enemy was sometimes no more than 70, 50 or even 30 yards away. Both Tommy and Fritz could quite easily hurl greetings and insults to one another, and, importantly, come to tacit agreements not to fire. Incidents of temporary truces and outright fraternisation were more common at this stage in the war than many people today realise - even units that had just taken part in a series of futile and costly assaults, were still willing to talk and come to arrangements with their opponents.
As Christmas approached the festive mood and the desire for a lull in the fighting increased as parcels packed with goodies from home started to arrive. On top of this came gifts care of the state. Tommy received plum puddings and 'Princess Mary boxes'; a metal case engraved with an outline of George V's daughter and filled with chocolates and butterscotch, cigarettes and tobacco, a picture card of Princess Mary and a facsimile of George V's greeting to the troops. 'May God protect you and bring you safe home,' it said.
Not to be outdone, Fritz received a present from the Kaiser, the Kaiserliche, a large meerschaum pipe for the troops and a box of cigars for NCOs and officers. Towns, villages and cities, and numerous support associations on both sides also flooded the front with gifts of food, warm clothes and letters of thanks.
The Belgians and French also received goods, although not in such an organised fashion as the British or Germans. For these nations the Christmas of 1914 was tinged with sadness - their countries were occupied. It is no wonder that the Truce, although it sprung up in some spots on French and Belgian lines, never really caught hold as it did in the British sector.
With their morale boosted by messages of thanks and their bellies fuller than normal, and with still so much Christmas booty to hand, the season of goodwill entered the trenches. A British Daily Telegraph correspondent wrote that on one part of the line the Germans had managed to slip a chocolate cake into British trenches.
Even more amazingly, it was accompanied with a message asking for a ceasefire later that evening so they could celebrate the festive season and their Captain's birthday. They proposed a concert at 7.30pm when candles, the British were told, would be placed on the parapets of their trenches.
The British accepted the invitation and offered some tobacco as a return present. That evening, at the stated time, German heads suddenly popped up and started to sing. Each number ended with a round of applause from both sides.
The Germans then asked the British to join in. At this point, one very mean-spirited Tommy shouted: 'We'd rather die than sing German.' To which a German joked aloud: 'It would kill us if you did'.

Christmas eve
December 24 was a good day weather-wise: the rain had given way to clear skies.
On many stretches of the Front the crack of rifles and the dull thud of shells ploughing into the ground continued, but at a far lighter level than normal. In other sectors there was an unnerving silence that was broken by the singing and shouting drifting over, in the main, from the German trenches.
Along many parts of the line the Truce was spurred on with the arrival in the German trenches of miniature Christmas trees - Tannenbaum. The sight these small pines, decorated with candles and strung along the German parapets, captured the Tommies' imagination, as well as the men of the Indian corps who were reminded of the sacred Hindu festival of light.
It was the perfect excuse for the opponents to start shouting to one another, to start singing and, in some areas, to pluck up the courage to meet one another in no-man's land.
By now, the British high command - comfortably 'entrenched' in a luxurious châteaux 27 miles behind the front - was beginning to hear of the fraternisation.
Stern orders were issued by the commander of the BEF, Sir John French against such behaviour. Other 'brass-hats' (as the Tommies nick-named their high-ranking officers and generals), also made grave pronouncements on the dangers and consequences of parleying with the Germans.
However, there were many high-ranking officers who took a surprisingly relaxed view of the situation. If anything, they believed it would at least offer their men an opportunity to strengthen their trenches. This mixed stance meant that very few officers and men involved in the Christmas Truce were disciplined.
Interestingly, the German High Command's ambivalent attitude towards the Truce mirrored that of the British.


Chistmas Day
Christmas day began quietly but once the sun was up the fraternisation began. Again songs were sung and rations thrown to one another. It was not long before troops and officers started to take matters into their own hands and ventured forth. No-man's land became something of a playground.
Men exchanged gifts and buttons. In one or two places soldiers who had been barbers in civilian times gave free haircuts. One German, a juggler and a showman, gave an impromptu, and given the circumstances, somewhat surreal performance of his routine in the centre of no-man's land.
Captain Sir Edward Hulse of the Scots Guards, in his famous account, remembered the approach of four unarmed Germans at 08.30. He went out to meet them with one of his ensigns. 'Their spokesmen,' Hulse wrote, 'started off by saying that he thought it only right to come over and wish us a happy Christmas, and trusted us implicitly to keep the truce. He came from Suffolk where he had left his best girl and a 3 ½ h.p. motor-bike!'
Having raced off to file a report at headquarters, Hulse returned at 10.00 to find crowds of British soldiers and Germans out together chatting and larking about in no-man's land, in direct contradiction to his orders.
Not that Hulse seemed to care about the fraternisation in itself - the need to be seen to follow orders was his concern. Thus he sought out a German officer and arranged for both sides to return to their lines.
While this was going on he still managed to keep his ears and eyes open to the fantastic events that were unfolding.
'Scots and Huns were fraternizing in the most genuine possible manner. Every sort of souvenir was exchanged addresses given and received, photos of families shown, etc. One of our fellows offered a German a cigarette; the German said, "Virginian?" Our fellow said, "Aye, straight-cut", the German said "No thanks, I only smoke Turkish!"... It gave us all a good laugh.'
Hulse's account was in part a letter to his mother, who in turn sent it on to the newspapers for publication, as was the custom at the time. Sadly, Hulse was killed in March 1915.

Germany 3, England 2
On many parts of the line the Christmas Day truce was initiated through sadder means. Both sides saw the lull as a chance to get into no-man's land and seek out the bodies of their compatriots and give them a decent burial. Once this was done the opponents would inevitably begin talking to one another.
The 6th Gordon Highlanders, for example, organised a burial truce with the enemy. After the gruesome task of laying friends and comrades to rest was complete, the fraternisation began.
With the Truce in full swing up and down the line there were a number of recorded games of soccer, although these were really just 'kick-abouts' rather than a structured match.
On January 1, 1915, the London Times published a letter from a major in the Medical Corps reporting that in his sector the British played a game against the Germans opposite and were beaten 3-2.
Kurt Zehmisch of the 134th Saxons recorded in his diary: 'The English brought a soccer ball from the trenches, and pretty soon a lively game ensued. How marvellously wonderful, yet how strange it was. The English officers felt the same way about it. Thus Christmas, the celebration of Love, managed to bring mortal enemies together as friends for a time.'
The Truce lasted all day; in places it ended that night, but on other sections of the line it held over Boxing Day and in some areas, a few days more. In fact, there parts on the front where the absence of aggressive behaviour was conspicuous well into 1915.
Captain J C Dunn, the Medical Officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, whose unit had fraternised and received two barrels of beer from the Saxon troops opposite, recorded how hostilities re-started on his section of the front.
Dunn wrote: 'At 8.30 I fired three shots in the air and put up a flag with "Merry Christmas" on it, and I climbed on the parapet. He [the Germans] put up a sheet with "Thank you" on it, and the German Captain appeared on the parapet. We both bowed and saluted and got down into our respective trenches, and he fired two shots in the air, and the War was on again.'
The war was indeed on again, for the Truce had no hope of being maintained. Despite being wildly reported in Britain and to a lesser extent in Germany, the troops and the populations of both countries were still keen to prosecute the conflict.
Today, pragmatists read the Truce as nothing more than a 'blip' - a temporary lull induced by the season of goodwill, but willingly exploited by both sides to better their defences and eye out one another's positions. Romantics assert that the Truce was an effort by normal men to bring about an end to the slaughter.
In the public's mind the facts have become irrevocably mythologized, and perhaps this is the most important legacy of the Christmas Truce today. In our age of uncertainty, it comforting to believe, regardless of the real reasoning and motives, that soldiers and officers told to hate, loathe and kill, could still lower their guns and extend the hand of goodwill, peace, love and Christmas cheer.

:rolleyes:wow........:eek:

KellyG

2 years back I got the worse present EVER from my mother...
She bought me a torch......... and a pair of slippers......
WTF....
But my husband made up for it by proposing with the most amazing ring ever... a xmas i will never forget

Roadend

Will that ring provide light if the power is out and its dark???? Its not a patch on the torch.

Morgase

Worst: A couple of years ago my mother got me a packet of yellow dustcloths and a bag of pot pourri from the pound shop. I like practical stuff, but dustcloths? Words failed me!

Best: My boyfriend always gets me great computery stuff. This year he upgraded my computer for me with a new processor, new motherboard, new monitor etc. Yay!

Holsten

Erm... never really got any **** presents.

Best had to be the Ps2 when it first came out, hard as hell to get.

I was a happy boy.

KellyG

Roadend wrote: »

Will that ring provide light if the power is out and its dark???? Its not a patch on the torch.

Very true.. I take it back
'Mother, your gift was the best EVER' :pac:

vektarman

MagicMarker wrote: »

Some big, fat, hairy fella in a red suit once emptied his sac onto my floor.

Do you realise that's another word for scrotum..;)

Miguel_Sanchez

Jazmin Grumpy Bark wrote: »

I once asked my parents for a particular phone one christmas which they refused to buy for me because it was too expensive. They bought the same phone for my younger brother that same year and promptly gave it to him a week early which was perplexing.

The worst present I ever got was a kite from my older brother when I was sixteen or seventeen. I wasn't (unjustifiably) upset/angry or anything, it was just bemusing to recieve a kite as a present in December.

The worst present I have given anyone was in college when my class was doing a "Secret Santa" thing amongst ourselves with a €5 limit. I assumed it was just supposed to be a gag gift thing so I took a €3 black and white photo of myself in one of those passport picture machines, signed it, and put it in a €2 frame wrapped in the pages of an issue of the Galway Advertiser.

The girl I gave it to never spoke to me again after that.

Because it's supposed to be a Secret Santa and you ruined it for everyone. That's why she never spoke to you again.

useful_contacts

minxie1 wrote: »

guys and girls
christmas is coming around again...
:)

well spotted :pac:

Davidius

Best:
Game Boy Color, Pokémon Blue and link cable.

Worst:
In the spirit of Christmas my brother decided that his present to my twin and I should be three "Hello"s.

Not just saying it, but writing "Hello" on three strips of paper, placing them in a box and putting in a brick in order to give the whole thing more weight. Then wrapping it up. Lulz were had upon it being opened.

It was also one of the best presents ever. :pac: