Christmas Message 1941
Winston Churchill
24 December 1941, Washington,
D.C.
Source
I spend this anniversary and festival far from my country,
far from my family, yet I cannot truthfully say that I feel far from
home. Whether it be the ties of blood on my mother's side, or the
friendships I have developed here over many years of active life, or the
commanding sentiment of comradeship in the common cause of great peoples
who speak the same language, who kneel at the same altars and, to a very
large extent, pursue the same ideals, I cannot feel myself a stranger here
in the centre and at the summit of the United States. I feel a sense
of unity and fraternal association which, added to the kindliness of your
welcome, convinces me that I have a right to sit at your fireside
and share your Christmas joys.
This is a strange Christmas
Eve. Almost the whole world is locked in deadly struggle, and, with
the most terrible weapons which science can devise, the nations advance
upon each other. Ill would it be for us this Christmastide if we
were not sure that no greed for the land or wealth of any other people, no
vulgar ambition, no morbid lust for material gain at the expense of
others, had led us to the field. Here, in the midst of war, raging
and roaring over all the lands and seas, creeping nearer to our hearts and
homes, here, amid all the tumult, we have tonight the peace of the spirit
in each cottage home and in every generous heart. Therefore we may
cast aside for this night at least the cares and dangers which beset us,
and make for the children an evening of happiness in a world of
storm. Here, then, for one night only, each home throughout the
English-speaking world should be a brightly-lighted island of happiness
and peace.
Let the children have their night of fun and
laughter. Let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their
play. Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted
pleasures before we turn again to the stern task and the formidable years
that lie before us, resolved that, by our sacrifice and daring, these same
children shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied their right to
live in a free and decent world.
And so, in God's mercy, a happy
Christmas to you all. |