January 1, 1917.
The men had a wonderful Christmas day. They were like a happy lot of children. We decorated the wards with flags, holly, mistletoe, and paper flowers that the men made, and a tree in each ward. You cannot imagine how pretty they were. Each patient began the day with a sock that was hung to the foot of his bed by the night nurses. In each was an orange, a small bag of sweets, nuts and raisins, a handkerchief, pencil, tooth brush, pocket comb and a small toy that pleased them almost more than anything else, and which they at once passed on to their children. They had a fine dinner—jam, stewed rabbit, peas, plum pudding, fruit, nuts, raisins and sweets. The plum puddings were sent by the sister of one of the nurses.
In the afternoon the trees were lighted and we had the official visit of the medicine chef and all the staff. After the festivities were over we began preparing for the tree for the refugee children. We had thought that we would have enough left over to manage for fifty children, but the list grew to one hundred and twenty-five. The mayor of the village let us have a large room in his house, as the first place we had chosen was too small. We had the tree on Sunday afternoon and three hundred and thirty-one children arrived. Fortunately we had some extra things so there was enough of something to go around. They had a lovely time, each one got a small toy, a biscuit, and most of them a small bag of sweets and an orange. The oranges and sweets gave out, but there was enough biscuits and toys, but there was nothing left.
We are all dead tired, for we worked like nailers for the past two weeks; but it was worth while, for we were able to make a great many people happy, and now we are sending off packages to the trenches—things that came too late for Christmas.
So many readers of this book expressed regret that it did not contain a photo of the one who penned these letters, as she is in home life, that we applied to the family, and after earnest solicitation they granted this—the one in use on her passports in France, which we are sure will complete this passport to the hearts of her readers.
We expect to move this month. It will be an awful business breaking up here, for all the barracks have to be taken to pieces and moved with us. We have begun to take an inventory, and to pack up, but I do not know just where we will move to, the papers are not in order yet. It is hard to believe that another year of war has begun.