Now about the singing on Christmas Eve, which was the loveliest part of the whole Christmas to me. At 8:15 about 50 bundled-up nurses left the quarters and walked down across the snow, each carrying her candle lantern. It was the loveliest sight, for the night was perfect. It was not too cold and the snow made everything so bright. I had my violin to start them with and keep them on the key. We began at one corner of the camp and just as soon as we had started we were joined by all the officers and a number of the enlisted men, and soon up-patients gathered around too, so as we went from place to place between the lines of tents we must have been a crowd of over 200 people. I wish you could have seen what I saw. I knew the tunes so well I could watch the others as I played. Officers and nurses, and patients and nurses looking together over one sheet of words (we had had the words mimeographed, for we have only two hymn books of the same kind), while one of them held the lantern so that the light fell on the paper. And all were singing so intently and so happily. One group of patients, who said they wanted to learn those “Yankee tunes,” pushed and shoved to be by me every time because they said they wanted to be near the “band.” We sang--“Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful.” That everybody knew; and “Hark, the Herald Angels,” and “It Came upon the Midnight Clear,” and “Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem,” and “Holy Night, Silent Night.” We sang in eight places. It is something I shall never forget if I live to be a hundred, and I imagine a good many felt the same way. If there only were some other way we could have community singing. There is nothing like it. I was worn to a frazzle afterwards, but it was worth any amount of effort. The night nurses said the patients loved it, only there was not enough of it, though we sang for an hour and a half all together. After the singing we in our hut had a little hut party. We had a little Christmas tree, with fool presents on it for each one of us with a rhyme. You don’t know what lovely tree decorations can be made out of the silver-foil out of candy boxes; a bit of gilt fringe which was carefully raveled was a great find. We had a nice little family party, ending with cocoa and little cookies; then parted for the night. At midnight Ruth and I went with a group of the Catholic nurses over across the road to the midnight service in their chapel.