Christmas Every Day

So, you’ve conquered the Caucasus. What to do but dream of Christmas at home?

So, you’ve conquered western Russia. What’s a lonely Luftwaffe pilot to do for Christmas? Send a picture of a Heinkel He 111 buzzing the desolate landscape, of course.

So, you’ve just conquered France. What’s a lonely soldier to do for Christmas? Why, cozy up with his Wehrmacht buddies, listen to carols from home on the radio and gaze at the map of the land you’re occupying.

To replace St Nicholas, a Christian Christmas gift-bringer, the Communists introduced Grandfather Frost, Ded Moroz, to bring good things at New Year’s. Here he unloads a bag of explosive whoop-ass on German invaders.

The Soviet Union hoped to create the first atheist state and discouraged the celebration of Christmas. They transferred midwinter gift-giving and celebration to New Year’s. Here is a New Year’s card with a Red Army Santa sending a shell to Nazi invaders.

Here is a jolly Canadian image from the First World War with Santa as an army officer.

It is common during wartime to use Christmas as a psychological ploy against one’s enemies, usually by encouraging opposition soldiers to desert or weaken their resolve. Here is one used by Communist forces during the Korean War. Inside was a letter telling American and Allied troops that this was an unjust war.

Here is a 1939 card with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. “Befana” is Italian for both Epiphany and the kindly Christmas witch who brings gifts on the night January 5. Mussolini is thus represented as the source of Christmas goodness.

Here is an extremely rare card from the Spanish Civil War in 1937. Inside it reads:

With the Season’s Greetings

Christmas… 1937

New Year… 1938

From the Volunteers of the 15th International Brigade and Their Brothers in the Spanish Republican Army

British Battalion • Lincoln-Washington Battalion • Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion • And Spanish Volunteers.

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion (the “Mac-Paps”) were the Canadian volunteers who fought against Franco’s forces on behalf of the Spanish Republic.

A plucky British card from 1940. The undaunted middle-class gent prepares to spend the night in the Tube station with his gas mask and blanket.