Last year Sainsbury’s, a British supermarket chain, ran the following commercial for the Christmas season ~
 

 
Considered controversial (by leftie malcontents) for making light of such a remarkable moment in history, and for supposedly trivializing the horror of war to sell a product (gasp!), Sainsbury’s rightly defended the ad, explaining that it was ~

… intended to reflect the theme of sharing at Christmas and act as a tribute to the spirit of humanity displayed in the unofficial truce.

 
Although the video’s producers obviously took artistic license with their brief adaptation, it was based an actual documented event that took place on Christmas Day, 1914. Gerard DeGroot at the UK Telegraph tells “The truth about the Christmas Day football match” ~

The Germans provided the beer and singing, while officers from both sides struggled to prevent the troops from fraternising ~
 
The truce was, first and foremost, an act of rebellion against authority. In the trenches, though peace on earth seemed a ridiculous fantasy, impromptu ceasefires had been occurring as early as December 18. The British High Command, alarmed that the holiday might inspire goodwill, issued a stern order against fraternisation. Officers were warned that yuletide benevolence might “destroy the offensive spirit in all ranks”. Christmas, in other words, was to be a killing time.
 
The Germans, however, were stubbornly festive. In an effort to bolster morale, truckloads of Christmas trees were sent to the Kaiser’s forces. All along the line, Germans were acting in bizarrely peaceful fashion…

In closing, DeGroot nicely captures the essence of the event ~

For a brief moment, football (European soccer) provided a ritual of commonality, a reminder to the British and Germans that what they shared was more important than what divided them. It was fitting that it should be so, since football was the common man’s game, a shared culture every nation could understand. This war had made every single infantryman exactly the same – not hero but victim, a tiny piece of fuel fed into the furnace of war. Yet for one glorious hour, a football match in no man’s land offered an opportunity for these faceless soldiers to assert themselves, to kick back at the monster.

 
Read the rest of the article HERE.
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Related:
Up-dated 12-27-15:
WWI Diaries Testify of a Legendary Christmas Day Truce ~

There was not an atom of hate on either side that day,” Bairnsfather said.
 
Although fighting continued on most of the Western Front, the unauthorized truce extended along virtually all of the 27-mile length of the British line.