Christmas on the battlefield. 100 years ago next week, the Germans and the British (along with the French and Belgian soldiers) laid down their guns for two days to celebrate Christmas. It happened on a battlefield early in the first world war, with thousands of corpses on that field. They concluded the Christmas service by singing Silent Night together.
30 years later, during World War II, a group of Americans brought Christmas back to a small town in Luxembourg that had been occupied and destroyed by war. The children of that town hadn’t celebrated Christmas in four years. An American (who happens to be from Pittsford) played Santa for the town, and to this day, he remains a celebrity for that Luxembourg village. He’s now 93 years old, and joins us to tell his story. We then play a partial rebroadcast of Walter Cronkite and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performing and reading Silent Night, Holy Night to mark the 1914 event. Christmas on the battlefield.
Then, we get an update from Innovation Trail Editor Matthew Leonard about the Cuomo administration's decision to not allow hydrofracking in New York State.