Sidney D. Light's WWI Diary, Postcards & Letters, 329th Battery Book Accounts

      Christmas day it snowed in Pont-a-Mousson. The snow looked more like home than anything we had seen in France. Christmas night we feasted. The fellows were prone to look forward to Christmas day with just a tinge of regret, secretly they hoped to be back home by then, but it wasn’t so bad after all.

       If the headquarters company cooks had by accident poured a sack of salt instead of sugar into the coffee, or if they had burned the beans six days in succession, on Christmas day they made up for all of it. In all our army life we never had a feed like that and Thanksgiving and Christmas back at Custer were no mean affairs.

       Darkness came at four-thirty which was our usual suppertime but two extra hours were given on that night in which to whet up our appetites. They were keen when the time came.

       Enough food for two hundred men is a whole lot more food than three cooks can prepare, sample and serve, so at the sound of the whistle the company fell in and gave them a lift to the banquet hall.

       For this special occasion the gymnasium on the third floor of the school building was cleared and converted into a banquet hall. Some of our camouflage artists and been busy during the day and the gym looked regular. A big Christmas tree bowed to us from one corner. Old Glory waved from another. The walls were draped with vine and evergreen. Jap lanterns here and there topped off the setting of the scene.

       We filed in at the appointed hour and the most pleasant Christmas night ever spent away from home started. The dinner wasn’t served in courses. It all came in at once and the tables fairly creaked. The mess sergeant with a broad smile on his face leaned against the wall and watched the boys enjoy themselves. And they whole-heartedly paid him the fairest compliment to his efforts that he could wish for.

       The feast over someone started tearing away the decorations from a corner. The evergreen parted, our eyes rested on the end of a huge keg. Ah, Fritz, you unwillingly shared part of your Christmas delicacies with us! The tap was driven in and merriment claimed the evening.

       We had guests that night and they favored us with toasts. Captain Brady, the Chaplain and our own officers livened up the occasion with jests. We had songs, recitals and games. Each man got a present from the Christmas tree and read aloud the poem attached to it.

       It was a happy occasion all the way around and the boys will remember it when other features are forgotten, that surprise of surprises, that Christmas night in the No-Man’s Land of but a yesterday.