I’ll be Home for Christmas By Eleri Grace

Many classic Christmas songs, stories, and films date to the 1940s, to WWII in particular, and with good reason. Almost half the popular Christmas tunes performed and played today were written and originally recorded in the 1930s-40s, with the majority of the remainder dating to the 1950s-1960s.

Why such an outpouring of creativity in celebration of Christmas? Homesick American soldiers, together with their lonely sweethearts, wives and mothers on the home front, spurred a nostalgic idealization of the holiday. These Christmas tributes sound universal themes of love, fellowship, hope and resurgence, presenting a stark contrast with the harsh realities of war. Through the vehicle of popular culture, artists united Americans in common purpose and camaraderie. 

Christmas Eve will find me

Where the love-light gleams

I’ll be home for Christmas

If only in my dreams.

                         

Kim Gannon, Walter Kent, and Buck Ram (1943)

This beautiful Library of Congress compilation of photographs, essays, magazine articles, journal entries and other reminiscences is the perfect way to step back in time to the bygone era of WWII this holiday season. It captures the spirit of the men and women serving overseas, as well as the hopes and fears of those who kept the home fires burning, who longed for the safe return of their loved ones.

The heroines of my Clubmobile Girls novels helped alleviate the acute homesickness experienced by so many young soldiers as Christmas neared. Suppressing their own longing for the comforts of home, the Red Cross Girls threw themselves into creating innovative holiday decorations, procuring gifts, and hosting holiday parties. Wherever possible, American soldiers were anxious to spread Christmas cheer to locals, particularly to area children. Red Cross Girls worked with the military to plan and pull off these festive celebrations that brought so much joy to the young men fighting the war so far from home.

 

In my debut novel Courage to be Counted, my heroine Vivian experiences an intense longing for her sweetheart and for home while singing “Silent Night” at a party the Red Cross and men of the 305^th Bomb Group hosted for village children in England. The party she and her friend Mabs plan would have looked something like this photograph from the 379th Bomb Group in Kimbolton, England.

379th Bomb Group (National Archives)

Photo ID: 342-FH-3A-14449-65542AC.

Meanwhile, her hero Jack wishes desperately that he could introduce her to his family as he shares what he knows will be his last Christmas dinner at home for a long while. Two years later in 1944, huddled under blankets in a freezing billet in Belgium with the Battle of the Bulge raging all around her, Vivian recalls with a pang of nostalgia the previous Christmas, when she and Jack spent holiday leave in London.

Making Christmas cards from Chinese currency in December 1944 (National Archives)

Inventive Christmas tree near Buna, Papua New Guinea, 1942

As you can see from the photos I’ve included here, the Red Cross Girls called on no small amount of ingenuity to replicate Christmas traditions for American soldiers serving all over the world. They made paper chains, used aluminum cans, cigarette cartons, and the metal strips known as chaff that the air forces released from their planes to jam radar defenses, strung popcorn, and made use of recycled Christmas cards.

The subtitle of I'll be Home for Christmas is The Library of Congress Revisits the Spirit of Christmas During World War II. The spirit of Christmas was especially strong in these tumultuous years, leaving us all with a lasting legacy of treasured Christmas music, stories and films. 

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