Another War-time Christmas
BOUT half of the people living in New Zealand to-day are old enough to remember the Great War. About a third are old enough to remember it with emotion. About a third of that third may still remember its Christmases. To all the others those days are nothing. Fortunately there are better occupations than remembering. Enjoying is one; and if there is an occupation worse than any other for next Monday it is refusing to forget. We certainly thought when we celebrated Christmas in 1914 that peace on earth was coming to men of goodwill. When Christmas came in 1918 we thought that men of bad will had been for ever restrained. It was horrible to note as time went on that we had been so completely deceived, but the knowledge has been with us for many months now, and it serves no useful end to dwell on it. We should: trust our emotions. No one on earth will be a whit better off if we refuse to be as happy as we feel. And most people do feel happy on Christmas morning even when they don’t know why. We have sometimes of course obtained ‘cakes and ale by a false pretence. We have smiled and smiled and remained villains. It was villainy to talk peace while we secretly prepared for war, as most nations did once when it suited them. It is villainy to hide behind the petticoats of peace when duty clearly calls us out to fight; and many of us have done that, too, in our moments of weakness and weariness. But most of us are neither heroes nor shirkers, though it is possible to be both. We are babes in a wood that happens at present to be dark. We don’t know how much longer we shall have to wander, and we are beginning to be afraid to smile. If we don’t smile, the goblins will get. us. We shall sink so far into gloomy forebodings that even peace, when it comes, will find us incapable of using it. It is better to be merry before the festive instinct dies. After all, the overwhelming majority have no reason, so far, not to be merry. a
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 26, 22 December 1939, Page 12
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372Another War-time Christmas New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 26, 22 December 1939, Page 12
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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