100 years ago

This is such a "tale of a vanished world" (I cannot imagine it happening today) and yet it is still one of those things that is pointed to as "keep a little faith in humanity":

The World War I Christmas truce.

It happened 100 years ago this year. British, French, and German soldiers all ceased hostilities for a little while, sang together, exchanged small items, possibly played a game of football (what we call soccer)...

The site I linked lists some of the common things that happened. There were not truces everywhere along the "Western Front" (and in fact, some writers disputed that they happened at all, there not being truces in the area where they were), but there's enough evidence to support that they happened some places:

"But precisely what happened during the truces? With some notable exceptions most letters refer to a number of common events:

• An agreement on a truce
• Burying any dead lying in No Man's Land, including prayers such as the 23rd Psalm
• Chatting and swapping jokes
• Exchanging souvenirs
• Swapping of information about the war
• Singing of songs and hymns
• A football match?
• An agreement as to when the truce would end

There's much controversy over whether football matches took place during the truce"

It seems, I don't know, but this little moment of humanity in what was a pretty inhumane war.

I doubt we will ever see its like again; for one thing, I think Christianity (either devout or nominal), which would be necessary for one to want to recognize a Christmas truce is not as widespread any more* and of course, in our current fights, often the people we are fighting are not people who celebrate Christmas. (I wonder: do US forces hold back on fighting on Muslim holy days? I would hope they did, just as a "common decency" thing)

(*Also, I think there is often less respect for religion in general society/non-practitioners of that religion than there once was; I remember a time when churches were left unlocked in case someone needed either sanctuary or a place to pray. Now, an unlocked church usually means that anything that can be sold is stolen.... And of course, we see an increase in ugly vandalism of different types of places of worship.)