Although this week we print one letter from a Luton soldier in the trenches wishing all his old workmates at the Diamond Foundry "a merry Christmas and a happy New Year" and another expressing similar sentiments towards all readers from a Luton soldier lying grievously wounded in a London hospital, it is to be feared that there are not many at home who will feel themselves able to indulge in the time-honoured greeting.

We shall meet this Christmas under the shadow of one of the greatest calamities the world has ever seen, and we have to remember that many of our bravest and best are sacrificing their lives in their country's cause.

This is rather a time for doing good, for sharing comforts with others less fortunately placed, than for indulging in feasting and merriment. It is assuredly not a time for unnecessary contraction of expenditure, because the spending is required to make the wheels of commerce go round.

Men and women who have money to spend should spend as freely as ever, but there was never a greater call upon them to let others participate in the comforts their money is able to procure. A generous response to that call will assist greatly towards making as happy a Christmas as possible, and we may all pray that the New Year will bring us once again the blessings of peace.

The letters referred to in the editorial were from Pte G. Doughty, A Company, 1st Battalion, Beds Regt, whose home address was 14 Ebenezer Street, Luton, and Pte H. Clark, of 332 Hitchin Road, Luton, a reservist with the 2nd Battalion, Beds Regt, who was seriously wounded in the shoulder and side near Ypres on October 31st and was in hospital, likely to be partially disabled for the rest of his life.

[The Luton News, December 24th, 1914]