But Christmas Eve he will not come by any happy chance;
This year his kindly Santa Claus must guard a trench in France.
His mother bravely tries to smile; last Christmas Eve was gay;
Last Christmas morn his daddy rose at dawn with him to play;
This year he'll hang his stocking by the chimney, but the hands
That filled it with the joys he craved now serve in foreign lands.
He is too young to understand his mother's troubled glance,
But he that was his Santa Claus is in a trench in France.
Somewhere in France this Christmas Eve a soldier brave will be,
And all that night in fancy he will trim a Christmas tree;