Summery: As Tomorrow marks 100 years since the end of World War One, I thought I should write this short story, about what might have been the real reason for the 1914 Christmas Football Game.
It was horrible in the Trenches.
It was cold, wet, muddy, you could easily get sick, and there were rats everywhere.
Nobody wanted to be here, but everyone knew that they had to: To protect their countries (and possibly the world) from the opposite side.
It was December, and it was getting colder and more people were getting sick and injured.
Each morning No-Man's-Land had coverings of frost and snow, untouched by anyone or anything until the first attack of the day started.
Jack Frost, who had been watching the war all winter, was in a tree trying to think of ways make things more fun and happy for both sides.
Once he even tried to stop the whole thing himself by causing a blizzard and freezing everything, but that didn't work and they were soon firing at each other again.
Every day, Jack watched as the two sides shot bombs, weapons, grenades', and other things and the opponents. How they cheered when they got one of the other side down, but then saw that they had lost five of theirs.
It was Christmas tomorrow, and Jack wanted to do something, anything, for these men to make them drop their weapons for that one day meant to be saved for peace. He just couldn't think of what.
"Come on, think!" he said as he started hearing one side start singing carols and saw the lanterns in both trenches go out meaning everyone was about to fall asleep.
As he thought, he watched as trails of golden sand came down and the men's dreams danced above their heads.
Most were of them being back with their families.
But Jack couldn't help with that.
The only thing he could do, was bring snow and cold - making them sicker. And make them want to have fun.
Then Jack saw a few dreams that gave him an idea.
Thinking, he went over to the other trench and checked those dreams and saw some of them were matching the other-sides dreams.
Grinning the Boy of Winter got to work. This would be the best Christmas present anyone of these men could get in a place like this.
0o0
In the morning the first few men awake were confused when they saw what looked like football goalposts made of ice were standing in front of their trench, and another in front of the enemies' trench.
The men were about to call for the rest of the men to help them tear them down so the day's fighting can start, when it started to snow and each man felt a flake land on their noses and a need to have fun overcame them.
One by one the men came out and met each other at the half way point of No-Man's-Land the leaders shaking hands agreeing that just for today, there would be a truce and they would have fun.
Hearing one of the men call out to their leader, they looked around and saw said man holding up a football that nobody had any idea where it came from, but they didn't care.
Within 10 minutes a fun, friendly came of football was being played over the area where for the last few months both sides have been firing at and weapon and bombs have gone off and landed.
In the tree, Jack watched with a smile on his face, cheering when someone scored a goal, not caring which side it was.
All that mattered was that these men were having fun on this Christmas Day.
The next day however, in some places the war was back on, others the truce lasted until New Year before those troops started firing again, but everyone everywhere would always remember that Christmas, even if it was never repeated in the following years.
For that was the one time when the troops came together and for one day ceased fire, where they trusted the enemy not to shoot them when they came out of their trenches, and they saw each other as equals - not enemies.
The moment the guns started firing again, Jack left giving the battle field one last dusting of snow. Jack Frost may not have ended the war, but he was proud of what he managed to achieve.