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This Week · Peace · Christmas Truce

Peace: could enemies ever choose peace — even for a day?

For littler ones: Could two people who were fighting stop and be kind to each other, even for one day?

Peace — Could enemies ever choose peace — even for a day?

This week we're wondering about peace — not the quiet of a sleeping house, but the harder kind, the kind two sides have to choose. Could enemies ever set the fighting down, even for a single day? It's a good thing to turn over in the car or at the table, and with the holidays close, it's a fitting week to ask it.

This week's stories

American

The Christmas Truce of 1914

On one Christmas in a long war, soldiers on both sides climbed out of their trenches, set down their guns, and met in the open ground between them — men who'd been shooting at each other the day before, and would again the day after.

Classics

Androcles and the Lion

A runaway who once pulled a thorn from a lion's paw, and the lion who remembered it — and chose, when the two met again as enemies, not to harm him.

Talk about it

  • What do you think it took for those soldiers to climb out and walk toward the other side?
  • The truce ended and the fighting started again. Does a peace that doesn't last still count for something?
  • Has there been someone you were angry at — and what would it take to set it down, even for a little while?

A new question every week.

Listen together in the app — short audio stories for kids 4–10, at bedtime, on the drive, in the drop-off line.

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