Thank you, bob. I am glad to see so many people escape from the rain inside here. [laughter] i hope that is not the only reason youre here. But it is dry inside. Christmases,time is something that came upon me accidentally. To write expected about the subject or talk about it. I did spend two christmases in korea during the korean war. They were not very exciting christmases. Hardly anybody knew it was until he tended to tokyo army radio and heard recordings like i saw mommy kissing santa claus, which was not very good for morale. [laughter] about christmas and war. My first biography dealt with lawrence of arabia. It came out just as the movie with peter otoole came out. That was a lucky break because people suddenly heard of me. It made it easier to write other books. The 1980s, i began work on a book on the end of world war i on the armistice on november 11, 1918. In the process of doing that research, after many previous books, i discovered there had been a truce, a cessation of christmasin the period of 1914, the first year of world war i. I was fascinated by the idea that the war may have stopped for good earlier. Why hadnt it . Was this really a truce . I went back to the history books. Not all of them are accurate about this period. A number of historians who even earned knighthood in england did not even mention the Christmas Truce in the index of their books. It did not happen, it was a mess. Myth. Then i came upon a reference to the fact that soldiers from both french,ermans, british, played football between the trenches in no mans land. Land for those of you not involved in wartime studies is the period between the two sites that is fought over, a period no man wants to be in. They played football. Football is soccer in american terms. I discovered it was a myth, it did not really happen. Who could have played football in no mans land full of shell holes and dead bodies . Dead bodies truly because it was an area that you could not go into to retrieve the wounded or dead without being shot at. Bodies literally littered no mans land. I went and checked further and found there was a truce. It did happen. While my wife and i were working on it, a book came out in england, a picture book of the Television Show about the Christmas Truce. Lectures had been found in the Imperial War Museum pictures had been found in the Imperial War Museum of the british and germans fraternizing in no mans land. The picture book made it evident there really was such a thing. But it did not go into details about what really happened in the cases of other truce. Were the french involved . Where the germans involved . Were there only scotsman involved in the British Forces and so on . I found much of interest to go back to. We went back to england every summer looking at material. We went to the british newspaper , thery in north London Library no longer exists. It was there at the time. It contained all the newspapers salvaged from the blitz. The library had been bombed during world war ii. Many files and newspapers have been destroyed. But the british painstakingly covered all of england, wales, andscotland, and ireland found files of newspapers to replace many they had been missing. We went through those papers be anyg if they would news about the Christmas Truce, it would appear in those newspapers because there was not any censorship yet. Although there was not any wartime censorship, correspondents were not allowed at the front lines. In a sense, there was tacit censorship. Where did we find information . We found it in places like letters to the editor, strange place to do research. What happened is soldiers involved in the truce road home wrote . It was not very far from home. It took four or five days or a week for the letters to get home. They rode home and said mom, dad, dear wife, you wont believe what happened to us. It was like a waking dream. They went on to describe how the truce had begun and how it lasted and what friends they had made from the other side and how it all began. Began in a couple of unexpected ways. One of the ways, i brought a sample here, you are welcome to look at it later. Box, it says christmas 1914. It was sent by the british to their troops in flanders and in france with chocolates or candy or tobacco or other things for christmas. This was to lift morale. The germans discovered the british were going to do this, and so they rushed out their own boxes, wooden boxes in this case, filled with what would be typical german gifts for christmas. Snacks, cigars, sausages, something typically german. The result was each side had something to swap. [laughter] they could trade christmas gifts. In addition, one of the british sayingers had big ads send plum puddings to your loved ones at christmas. The troops got so many plum puddings they did not know what to do with them all. [laughter] they were very happy to swap them for anything the germans were willing to swap them for. [laughter] the germans on the other side of started to Christmas Truce because what happened is route toas an easier bring christmas thanks to the frontlines. They did not have to cross the english channel. The tradition in germany that went back a couple of hundred years was to have tabletop for trees. Fir not big trees with all kinds of gaudy stuff on them like we have in this country. But tabletop trees so each child in the family would have his or her own tree. Under it, you would put gifts. Those tabletop trees perhaps 30 inches high, not even a yard high in some cases, were shipped out to tens of thousands to the front lines. Chancesans took their and erected them on the front of their trenches. They came already with candles attached. The germans were very efficient about this. They did not just centuries send trees. They sent trees with candles attached. The germans attached these to their trenches and let them. The british were only a few hundred yards away and shot at them. The germans patiently redirected them. Reerected them. [laughter] before long, the british got curious about what they were shooting at. They crawled into no mans land looking at the other side and what was all lit up. They discovered the Christmas Trees and the germans had crawled out from their site to meet them. The two sides agreed that yes, it was christmas. They were celebrating christmas. Why dont we do so in daylight . This was Christmas Eve. Why dont we get together . They could get together and swap gifts because they had all of these gifts and the british had plum puddings besides. [laughter] the result was the next morning at dawn, the british and germans called out to no mans land and began clearing the area of shell holes and dragging out the corpses from no mans land for burial. Reverentlyence quite the two sides, quite reverently with chaplains attending, buried the dead. After they buried the dead and filled in the shell holes, they had a field to play football. The only problem was they did not have a football. They did not have any of the gear that goes with soccer or european football. But the improvised they improvised anything they could. They improvised goals. They made goals. They actually had football play between the trenches. Night, whichlent is still in paper book, i have one chapter just called football, about the games played between the lines. People did not believe this actually had happened. The we went to the Imperial War Museum in london which has the records of all of the units that survived. The units on both sides were supposed to prepare what they of what was diaries going on in your unit for the day. We found in the daily diaries the scores of the games. [laughter] they really did happen. Many of the scores were very low like 32, but that is typical of software soccer, typical of european football. The germans won most of them. [laughter] but they were more professional perhaps in their backgrounds for football than the british were. But the games existed. They continued to gather between the lines until the commands discovered the truce was occurring. Peace was happening. They had not ordered it. It might get contagious. The war might end. Beside at might end, the most disadvantaged would not only lose, gntaged would not only lose, the government would fall. They could not let this happen. They had to start the war again, and so the war gradually started again. But the Commanding Officers of truceits involved in the did not want to fight each other. They knew each other. Ir men wereher farmers, milkmen, carpenters, shoe salesman, and so on. Er on then barb frontlines discovered one of his former clients from his days in england threre. He said you need a backend sides trim. [laughter] he set him up on ammunition box and cut his hair before the truce ended. The truce became more myth than anything else because it ended so quickly. In some cases, it lasted into new years eve and new years day. What happened was the two commands wanting the war to start again forced the soldiers to fight again and did so by taking the troops on the line that got to be friendly which other ended in the back into reserves and taking the reserve units and putting them forward because they were the ones who still hated the enemy. They did not have this experience. The truce therefore ended. But the truce became a matter of song and story. You find such things as newbies Christmas Snoopys christmas. Snoopy fighting the red baron. The red baron forces snoopy down. Snoopy is sure he will be shot. The red baron comes down in his plane with a bottle of champagne and says, merry christmas, my friend. And they share a bottle of champagne and the red baron flies off again. It is one of many songs that exist about the Christmas Truce. It was fascinating to discover them. As wellthe most moving as the least historical is called christmas in the trenches by the folksinger john mccutchen. Liness some wonderful about the troops discovering on each end of the rifle, they are the same. They did not want to fire those rivals, but they had to. Historically, but it is still a moving song. You never know when you are going to find songs that deal with the Christmas Truce. Some of them do not work at all. There is one country and western song by garth brooks. Most of you may know his name. Garth brooks has the americans involved in the Christmas Truce in the battle which took place in july of 1917. [laughter] softlythe snow falling on belleau wood in july. [laughter] and the americans involved. Of course they werent. But there are so many songs and that in my index in the book, it takes two pages just to list the song and stories about Christmas Eve. One of my favorites was told to me but a friend in england who said there is a Television Series called blackadder. It is on d. V. D. So it is easy to find now. I have the d. V. D. In this case. Officerder is a young in the british army. War, asked later in the were you involved in the Christmas Truce . He says, was i involved . I was never offside. [laughter] that notow from that only did they play football, but they actually had amateur referees involved, too. He was never offside. We checked further to see about blackadder and it turns out there were seven officers who died in the war named blackadder. Even though the author of the series may never have known he was writing fact, he wrote fact. Very strange to discover your writing truth when you did not know you were doing it. That was the first of my christmas books. It was very successful and is still in print. I did not think i was going to write another one. But i was working on a book called iron tears. It is about how the american looked from the other side, how does it look to be a loser is what this is about. The book ought to be a very big one. When i got near the end of the book, i realized i was getting into christmas 1783. , two years after the war ended. And perhaps i should end the book where the war ended, and that was where the peace treaty was signed. State to washington visit my grandsons. I was asked by their teachers to come talk about writing to the students. How do you talk to first and fourth grade students about writing . I figured they must know something about George Washington because after all, the state is named washington. They go to the Thomas Jefferson school, therefore they must know something about Thomas Jefferson. I could talk to them about that subject. Well, i did. I pointed out that i was thinking of ending the book before the feast treaty because the book was getting too long, and i ended with yorktown, the battle the british lost war. Itively that ended the they wanted to know more about what happened after that. Washington still had to take new york city back from the british, and he took it back at christmas 1783. They wanted to know about christmas. Did washington go home for christmas . Did he have a christmas treat . How did he travel . Did he have a horse . What was the horses name . I did my research and found out the horses name was nelson. Is something you may remember from this talk. I realized there was a book just in that aspect of the war. I wrote a book called general washingtons christmas farewell about his taking of new york and traveling home as a great hero. Wasywhere he went, he treated as a hero. People were very sad to learn he was going to turn in his commission angle that and go back to being a farmer at mount vernon. When he heard about this coming he said if washington refuses to be king, he will be the greatest man in the world. And he was the greatest man in the world at that time. That resulted in a second christmas book that was unexpected. I then began thinking about a book about Franklin Roosevelt as president during the last election, his fourth term election in 1944 during world war two. He never lived to serve out the term. He died the next april. However, many people who voted for him, many servicemen who voted for him voted by absentee ballot because they were far away in europe or the pacific. This was about a month before the battle of the bulge in december 1934 1944. I began thinking that was not the first absentee ballot election. Lincoln was elected to a second term in absentee ballot election. I thought i would look it up and see if there was a book and it. It turned out there was, someone had already written it. It was a very good book. I was very sorry to discover it was already done. [laughter] but there was still Something Else when i looked it up. I found general sherman, having ofen atlanta in november 1864 just after the election, crossed georgia, the famous marched through georgia into savanna. When he reached savanna about two days before christmas and took savanna when the confederates retreated, he sent , telegram to lincoln saying you have savanna for christmas. I thought, here is a book. Here is the title. Savannah for christmas. I wrote a book about the march savannahanna to and wanted to title it savannah for christmas. My publisher did not like it because he thought it would sound like a travel book. I did not tell him that was crazy because he was the publisher and he could veto it. It became general shermans christmas. They changed the cover after the to generallished shermans christmas. According to my wife, no books were sold in the south as a result because general sherman was hated. Nevertheless, that was book number three about christmas. Writing about christmas, in each case accidentally. I wrote a book about generals eisenhower, marshall, and macarthur, taking them from their beginnings to their ends. A tripartite biography. 15 stars, each one with a fivestar general. It was called 15 stars. No one objected to it, although it got a dreadful subtitle awarded by the publisher. 11, i got to chapter realized the book was getting terribly long. I had to take out much of what i had written about the battle of the bulge because the book had to be shortened. I dont like to waste words. I reuse them. I recycled chapter 11 into a book called 11 days in december, which was about the battle of the bulge and how the battle of the bulge ended on Christmas Day, 1944. It ended on Christmas Day tly because a great man, a great general who was also may be a lousy human being, general george patton. Patton was in command of the third army and new the third army had to charge trudge through the snow and cold to somehow relieve the siege of bastogne, a town in belgium which was holding up the german advance. If he captured bastogne, he would stop the germans altogether. He tried to figure out how to do it because the weather was terrible. Luxembourgchapel in on the edge of the border between belgium and luxembourg, a medieval chapel. He was not a roman catholic. He was episcopalian. But he knelt at the chapel and prayed to god as if god were a superior general. And said, god, i need your help. I need good weather to kill germans. So we cand weather beat the germans. He got up from his prayer. It was overheard by his aides with him. Not anything i made up or anyone else made up. They went back to work. They broke the siege of bastogne trade the sun came out, the bombers flew. Thepatton was the hero of battle of the bulge. One never knows how something is going to turn into a christmas book. Something that continued for me. Look about ath wartime christmas because i had written an earlier one about pearl harbor. I dont know if bob has it on the shelf. Long days journey into war was trade iiment on my part wanted to write about every hour , becauseer 7, 1941 Franklin Roosevelt said in his decemberon to congress 11, 1941, is a date that will live in infamy. He did not say day. He said date. The twoonfuse regularly. I wanted to deal with the date. 7 or anys december other day on the west side of the International Date line. That is when the day begins. It is just east of new zealand that the day begins. I began where december the seventh began and i covered every hour it was december 7 west ofcember 7 ended hawaii, west of pearl harbor, and became december 8. Was aone of those dates different time elsewhere in the world. I think it was my wifes idea. I have four clocks at the heading of each chapter. One was for the actual time