Christmas arrived before the thaw, and, with twenty degrees of frost, the weather was appropriate to the occasion, and the blood tingled as it ought to do. The festival was celebrated by each unit on the date most convenient to itself, so the festivities continued well into January. Quartermasters had become expert in buying pigs “on the hoof” and fattening them. Béthune yielded oranges, apples, and nuts, and even beer at a price. Rations were supplemented lavishly from canteen funds, and there was no lack of cash, for it was intended that the men should have a good time. Mess-rooms were gay with garlands and bunting; dangers and hardships were forgotten, and the troops gave themselves over to merriment and good-fellowship. During the entertainment that followed one of the Christmas dinners an officer, much impressed by the radiant happiness, physical fitness, and morale, remarked: “I wonder what the parents would think if miraculously transported into this room? They would imagine that being at the front is regarded as the most glorious fun in the world, and that their boys are having the time of their lives.” The pantomime, _Cinderella_, given by _Th’ Lads_, under the direction of Major Maude, D.A.A.G., Captain Webster, R.A.M.C., and Captain Makin, 9th Manchesters, drew large and enthusiastic houses, and richly deserved its popularity, the acting, staging and dresses being remarkably good. It was held at Le Quesnoy, within range of the enemy’s field-guns, and parties of officers and men were taken by motor-lorry from their billets in adjacent villages. In addition, each unit organized concerts and entertainments, and the 7th Manchesters were specially prominent in this respect, Major Hurst’s delightfully funny sketch “_Gwendolen de Vere of Greenheys Lane_” being hugely enjoyed. Each Brigade or unit had its favourite songs and its own peculiar jokes, many of which were incomprehensible to the outsider. Perhaps none was quite so esoteric as the weird Lament of the 10th Manchesters, known in three continents and many countries as “_On Owdham Edge beaut ’at_” (sung to an old Methodist tune combining swing and solemnity), wherein the gruesome fate of the lad who, without head-covering, courts Mary Jane upon that eminence is foreseen by the fond parent in a way that vies with Darwin’s logic in tracing the super-excellence of the roast beef of Old England (pre-war) to the prevalence of old maids in rural districts, _via_ cats, mice, honey-bees, and clover. First a cold, then death, burial, eaten by worms, worms devoured by ducks, which in turn appear upon the family dinner-table. “Then we’s soon be ettin’ thee,” begins the last verse of this lugubrious but fascinating lyric. No doubt it recalled the loved, if unlovely, streets and mills of Chadderton, Mumps, Glodwick and Hollinwood, and visions of home and of potato-pie. A young “roughyed” who had taken a Blighty one at Nieuport got home-leave from a South of England hospital just after Christmas.