December 24

On this night in 1818, the first performance of Silent Night took place in Austria. 

On this day in 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to enter lunar orbit. In addition to taking the “Earthrise” photograph, they read from Genesis. 

Today is Christmas Eve. Christmas, or “Christ’s Mass,” has been traditionally observed on December 25th. Early Christians observed a tradition that Jesus’s conception and death happened on the same day of the year (Good Friday), and reasoned that his birth must have been nine months later, on December 25. 

Today in 1914, during World War I, English and German soldiers fighting in the trenches in Ploegsteert, Belgium, began singing Christmas carols. This led them to observe a spontaneous Christmas Day Truce, memorialized in the song “Christmas in the Trenches,” by John McCutcheon. 

Today marks the death, in 1964, of Claudia Jones, feminist and activist for Black nationalism and worker’s rights. She was born in Trinidad and Tobago, immigrated to the United States, was deported for her support of communism, and continued her activist work in the United Kingdom. She was one of several leaders who, before the term “intersectionality” was coined, called attention to the ways various forms of overlapping oppression operate in American society. 

Reflection:

Claudia Jones spoke these words before her sentencing and deportation, and they are relevant for our own struggle against this fascist administration: 

Relevant to Christmas Eve, Madeleine L’Engle wrote: 

Prayer: God, let your heralds proclaim peace on earth again. Amen.