It was the first Christmas after the Great War, and both Victoria newspapers recognized that the celebrations of 1918 — a century ago — would be more meaningful as a result.
“All is quiet on the Rhine, the Isonzo and the Danube,” the Victoria Daily Times wrote, “and the victorious armies will celebrate a Christmas absolutely new to them in their military experience, a Christmas in comparative comfort and security wholly undisturbed by hostile activities.”
The Daily Colonist noted that the time-worn phrases about having a happy Christmas and a prosperous new year had special significance in the dying days of 1918.
“This is the world’s Victory Christmas,” the Colonist said. “It has for all a tremendous spiritual meaning that we hope will never be forgotten, even at a time when so much is being written of the needs of material development.”
While the fighting had stopped, the war was still top of mind. On Christmas Day came the news that three local men — Louis Culmine and Edward Harold Sweeney, both from the Thoburn area of Esquimalt, as well as Henry Smith from the Elk Lake area of Saanich — had been repatriated from German prisoner of war camps. Another 20 Victoria men who had returned to Canada were being held in quarantine in Halifax.
Victoria celebrated Christmas 1918 with tradition, buoyed by the hope and promise that came with peace.
“Many family reunions have been rendered possible by the armistice, and in other families there are the vacant chairs of those who keep watch on the Rhine, in the ancient lands of western Asia, and elsewhere in those countries where the tide of battle has ebbed and flowed since 1914,” the Times said.
The newspaper noted that the shopping season had been heavier than in the war years, and many public entertainments were organized to bring relief to the needy, and comfort to those left with permanent injuries because of the fighting.
“No other festival is so universally recognized throughout Christendom, and none other so heartily kept, so the bells will ring out on a new world, and in no place will Christmas be better appreciated than in Victoria,” the Times said.
Special services were offered by the local churches. Nurses at the Royal Jubilee and St. Joseph’s hospitals had decorated the wards to cheer patients.
About 2,200 soldiers were at the Willows camp, ready to sail for Vladivostok to join the fighting in Siberia. The Victoria Daughters of the Empire served dinner to them, with 1,500 pounds of turkey and 500 plum puddings.
Lester Patrick opened his skating rink at the Willows on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and large crowds took advantage of the chance to skate there. Patrick also scheduled the first practice of the season for his hockey team, the Aristocrats, featuring Clem Loughlin, Moose Johnson, Charlie Tobin, Tommy Murray, Tommy Dunderdale and Alf Barbour.
At the Victoria Golf Club, J.P. Babcock celebrated Christmas with a hole-in-one.
The city had already been through the Spanish flu, and had closed schools, theatres, churches and other gathering places to help deal with the outbreak. At Christmas, health authorities warned that another wave was on its way.
Arthur G. Price, the medical health officer, was already sick in bed. By Boxing Day, 15 fresh cases were reported in the city.
Still, there was a sense of optimism, made possible because the guns of Europe had fallen silent, and fuelled by the religious celebration of Christmas Day.
“Never before, perhaps, has the deeper significance of the day been so fully realized, and even where the grim tragedy of the last four years has laid its heaviest hand, the day, hallowed by its sacred association, will cast its gleam of sunshine; to those in sorrow it will bring its message of peace on earth, good will to men,” the Times said in its Christmas editorial.
The editors also said the world should remember those who died in the war — “the myriad of its people but for whose sacrifices this Christmas also would have been saluted with the thunder of the guns, and perhaps with violent combat in the battle area, aerial bombardments, gas attacks and the destruction of lives at sea.”
The Colonist urged readers to reflect on the sacrificial spirit of our Canadian soldiers, who stood for days in waist-deep water in the trenches in Belgium and France. “Selfishness must be exorcised from the makeup of mankind,” the newspaper said.
“We are standing upon the ruins of a civilization that entailed the greatest war in history; that caused such widespread sufferings as will echo for centuries to come, and all this destruction has been caused because it was necessary that humanity should pass through a period of chastening.
“All that victory has brought us will avail naught unless from the sea of suffering mankind arises better and greater, and takes upon itself to say that hereafter the god-like shall dominate in the kingdoms of men.”
The Colonist said it is our prerogative to keep the fires of faith burning in eternal reverence as a beacon to the human race. “The day we celebrate is in honour of Him who came on earth for the redemption of all,” it said.
“The thought for today and for all succeeding days is: ‘Let there be light.’ ”
On Christmas Day of 1918, a century ago, the light of hope was burning bright — just as it should be today.
Merry Christmas to all.
