{"id":818,"date":"2025-12-08T16:07:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T16:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/civatar.com\/suziqsthoughts\/?p=818"},"modified":"2025-12-08T16:07:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T16:07:24","slug":"mm-1816","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/civatar.com\/suziqsthoughts\/2025\/12\/08\/mm-1816\/","title":{"rendered":"MM &#8211; 1816"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" src=\"https:\/\/civatar.com\/suziqsthoughts\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2025\/12\/image-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-819\" srcset=\"https:\/\/civatar.com\/suziqsthoughts\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2025\/12\/image-1.png 620w, https:\/\/civatar.com\/suziqsthoughts\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2025\/12\/image-1-300x200.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I went to a private school as a child. It was small&#8230;the year I graduated there were only 54 students in the entire school&#8230;2 in my graduating class&#8230;myself, and Tommy Hicks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades were all in the same classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was the homeroom of Mrs. Hopewell, our math teacher (we always called her the H-Bomb). She was a massive woman&#8230;not fat, mind you, but, tall&#8230;towering&#8230;big boned&#8230;almost masculine&#8230;and, good grief, was she intimidating! I don&#8217;t think there was a person in school who wasn&#8217;t terrified of her, and that included the teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I can&#8217;t think back on those years without smiling every time I think about her&#8230;she loved Christmas&#8230;.and she loved the song, Silent Night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She would have us sing it at the end of the school day during the holidays. We would sing the first stanza, and then we would hum the next. She openly wept. It always amazed me that this giant, &#8216;hard&#8217;, feared woman would become mush at the sound of all those innocent voices&#8230;the gentle humming of that wonderful song. It, actually, brings a tear to my eye as I think about it now&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The origin of the Christmas carol we know as Silent Night was a poem that was written in 1816 by an Austrian priest called Joseph Mohr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Throughout the world, &#8220;Silent Night&#8221;, which has been translated into more than 200 languages, is an anchor for Christmas celebrations. Its lullaby-like melody and simple message of heavenly peace can be heard from small town street corners in mid-America to magnificent cathedrals in Europe and from outdoor candlelight concerts in Australia to palm thatched huts in northern Peru.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The song was sung simultaneously in English and German by troops during the Christmas truce of 1914, as it was one of the few carols that soldiers on both sides of the front line knew. The event is depicted in the 1997 Garth Brooks song &#8220;Belleau Wood&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Belleau Wood | Garth Brooks | #christmas song\" width=\"1140\" height=\"641\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NqyNLkM9vRo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Belleau Wood&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oh, the snowflakes fell in silence<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over Belleau Wood that night<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For a Christmas truce had been declared<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By both sides of the fight<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we lay there in our trenches<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The silence broke in two<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By a German soldier singing<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A song that we all knew<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Though I did not know the language<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The song was &#8220;Silent Night&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then I heard my buddy whisper,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;All is calm and all is bright&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then the fear and doubt surrounded me<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8216;Cause I&#8217;d die if I was wrong<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I stood up in my trench<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I began to sing along<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then across the frozen battlefield<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another&#8217;s voice joined in<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Until one by one each man became<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A singer of the hymn<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then I thought that I was dreaming<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For right there in my sight<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stood the German soldier<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8216;Neath the falling flakes of white<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And he raised his hand and smiled at me<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As if he seemed to say<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s hoping we both live<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To see us find a better way<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then the devil&#8217;s clock struck midnight<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the skies lit up again<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the battlefield where heaven stood<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Was blown to hell again<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But for just one fleeting moment<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The answer seemed so clear<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Heaven&#8217;s not beyond the clouds<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s just beyond the fear<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No, heaven&#8217;s not beyond the clouds<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s for us to find it here<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Silent Night is the most famous Christmas carol of all time, and it happens to be my all time favorite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Please remember to pray for our troops, and their loved ones, this Holiday season, and throughout the year&#8230;May they all come home soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I went to a private school as a child. It was small&#8230;the year I graduated there were only 54 students in the entire school&#8230;2 in my graduating class&#8230;myself, and Tommy Hicks. The 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades were all in the same classroom. It was the homeroom of Mrs. Hopewell, our math teacher [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/civatar.com\/suziqsthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/civatar.com\/suziqsthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/civatar.com\/suziqsthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civatar.com\/suziqsthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civatar.com\/suziqsthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/civatar.com\/suziqsthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/civatar.com\/suziqsthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civatar.com\/suziqsthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civatar.com\/suziqsthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}