American Reacts to WW1 Christmas Truce 1914 - Sainsburys Christmas Advert 

My grandfather was a soldier in the First World War and took part in the Christmas Truce. He was given a handmade cloth bag that said Merry Christmas 1914 in German. I have it today

It's definitely my favourite ad. Mum, who passed away last year aged 91, had a neighbour who told her about this as a kid. She never believed him as he was always joking around. Turned out it was true. In the face of international war, there are real people. Great share and Merry Christmas from Stafford England UK 🇬🇧

It doesn't matter how many times I watch this ad, it always gets me. It's beautifully done. You might enjoy this quote from the diary of an officer in the Cheshire Regiment who was involved in the truce. It's especially fitting given the weather in the US right now: 'Dec 25. XMAS DAY I spent the most agonizing night, I ever remember, owing to the cold. It was freezing terribly hard and as we were in support trenches were not allowed fires. I was so cold and my feet so painful that I got out of the dugout and walked about - there was not much danger - stamping my feet till 4:30AM. Then was so fagged out I fell asleep but kept on waking owing to the pain of my feet. I quite thought I was frost-bitten. 7AM it was beginning to grow light but as there was a lot of mist I told the men they could light fires. They did not need telling twice. There is a farmhouse to the rear of the trenches where hens abound, also dead pigs, so taking two men with me we went on a henhunt. They fly like pheasants so took some catching and in about ten minutes there were about 60 men in the hunt. The fog lasted till about mid-day so we had good fun, getting in all eleven hens, one of which I brought back for tomorrow’s dinner. At about 2:30 all firing ceased and the Germans started shouting to us ‘Come out’, ‘Have a drink’ and then one of them climbed out of the trench without his equipment on, as one of ours did the same. It ended in a ‘Mother’s Meeting’ nearly every man of our trench, except machine gunners, was out, and a huge crowd was between the trenches. Someone produced a little rubber ball so of course a football match started. We exchanged various things and I got a cap-badge, belt buckle, whistle, rifle cartridge, purse and tea tablets, not to mention getting about four Germans’ names and addresses in their own handwriting on field service postcards, as a positive proof that it all really did happen, because it will naturally sound a very tall story when it gets told in the billets.'

The young German soldier shouts "he has no weapon".

The blue chocolate bar was actually for sale and the proceeds went to a charity for ex servicemen The British Legion

Without doubt the best British Xmas advert ever- produced in 2014 (100 years after the event). Gets me every single time I see it- in 1915 the generals were so worried about a repeat that they had the front lines shelled continuously on Xmas day. Just exceptional. Great reaction

So glad you reacted to this mate. My all time favourite Xmas advert.

My Mathematics and Latin teacher, who was in his 70's when he told us this story in 1969, took part in this football match. The following Christmases they were all ordered NOT to take part in any such truce by the high command.

That story was told to me as a young girl by great uncle who had family there. And they really did play football etc it was so hard to fight after. It gets me tearful every time.

Have watched this AD so many times, and never fails to make me cry 😢. My grandfathers both served in the first world War makes you appreciate a little of what they went through....hope you and your family have a fantastic Christmas 🎄

Great grandad was part of the Christmas truce. He was in the Royal Engineers.

Every year , in UK, there is a contest to produce the best Christmas Advert.. but.. THIS will always be the best ever made! 😥

Those temperatures are incredible. I hope everyone keeps safe. Best wishes for a Happy Christmas from a much milder but quite soggy England. So glad you reacted to this advert - my favourite of all time.

They thought it would be over by Christmas. Thanks for reacting to this. As a 60 year old man it still brings a tear to my eye. That was the war to end all wars. Merry Christmas to you and your family. Keep warm and stay safe.

If I remember correctly the Truce was arranged between British and German officers for Christmas day so that stretcher-bearers could pick up the dead. Then the truce escalated from there.

Paul Mc Cartney famously sang a song about this world-famous event in the 1980's, and truly brings home the spirit of Christmas, Merry Christmas to you all, it can indeed happen. We don't need a special time of year to remind us to be nice to one another, we can do it all the time, and indeed we should.

One of the footballs used in 1914 is in a regimental museum in the UK

Talking about the weather is very British,your ancestral roots are coming through loud and clear😃😃😃Have a wonderful Christmas Day with your family.Loved your response to the advert.Best Wishes from Manchester,England.6degrees celseus,about 40 Farenhiet a sunny day,washing on the line,thankful for a breeze.

This advert still gets to me. I think in addition to this many people thought WWI would be over by Christmas.

I think this was the Best ever Christmas Advert brings a tear every time i see it.

Doesn’t matter how many times I watch that advert…I cry every single time❤😢

The 1914 Christmas Truce entered into legend, for just a few short hours ordinary blokes on both sides of the barbed wire put their guns down, forgot they were at war, and remembered instead that they were people, and shared the magic of Christmas............ I dont know if you react to movies, but there is a simply wonderful movie called "Joyeux Noel" which tells the Christmas truce story from the viewpoint of French, British and German soldiers.........if you ever get the chance, watch it, it's one of my all-time favourite movies and I watch it without fail every Christmas....,

One of the all time great British Christmas adverts. Every time I see it it puts a lump in my throat. I’ve only been following you for a few months and I have loved following you on your journey, and will keep on following you. Steve, I hope you and your family have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

My favourite Christmas ad of all time...I cry every time I see it!

My favourite Christmas ad, it’s beautiful, merry Christmas Steve, stay warm🎄🎅

Thanks for your reaction. A joyful story but also such a sad story. Merry Christmas to you and yours 🎄🎄☃️☃️❤️❤️

This is actually a true story. The John Lewis christmas adverts are great also.

I've seen this ad many times, cry every time. My grandfather served in WWI in Ypres area. He was wounded and returned to UK and invalided out of the services. I knew him as a miserable, bitter old man but those who knew him before the war said he was a great bloke very social and always joking around.

You need to watch a documentary on the the 1914 Christmas truce. And you need to watch the John Lewis Christmas ad's too!

It’s a shame you haven’t discovered British Christmas adverts sooner. They’re amazing! And Merry Christmas!

Truly moving and up lifting but then horrendously sad to realise that many of these soldiers would go on to kill or be killed by those they made personal connections with and that would have left the survivors in a totally messed up headspace. It's different when you know the name of the enemy's wife and kids.

I'm old enough to have known two men who fought in ww1, this ad gives me a lump in my throat every time I see it .Steve have a look at Cadburys gorilla playing the drums. Merry Christmas to you your family and all your followers 🎅

adverts like these make me proud in so many ways

It's definitely the best TV commercial ever made!!!! IMHO...

I've seen this many times before- and it has still had me tearing up today, thinking about the way they all had to go straight back to fighting within hours. Hope the weather isn't too bad for you for too long.

I’m 40 years old. I have no known relatives that fort in ww1. I have very little compassion as a person but this still makes me feel emotional, just shows what people went through under the order of others that didn’t care about them,

-44f converts to effing freezing in England… seriously, sounds horrendous. Loving your reactions, you seem like a genuine bloke.

Love your videos mate, your reactions seem very human. Merry Christmas to you and your family 🎄 🎅

The Aldi Christmas ad for 2021 was brilliant, based on A Christmas Carol, probably one of the best I've seen

I tear up every time I watch this ❤Thank you,Hope you and your family have a great Christmas 🎄

Probably one of the best adverts out ever.

This is the goat.. Sainsbury's did well here and god bless em and all the families they did justice to.. special ad of ye take yhat ad oot the add ❤

Merry Christmas mate from the UK south coast.

There is a slightly longer version of it. Best advert ever.

The only good ad I’ve ever seen, didn’t even know it was one until the end

Have a very lovely Christmas and try and stay warm. We here in the UK have been told on the news just how freezing cold it is over there. I hope you don't lose your power like so many people have. Thank you for your channel and all the work that you put into it. Merry Christmas.

Gets me every time 😢 lol. Hope You Steve & Family have a Great Christmas! 🙂👍🇬🇧🇺🇸

I will always love this advert my grandfather was in the war my great grand father that is and he passed down that this actually happened just for Christmas day before they had to go back and fight which was sad just for one day the soldiers were able to be themselves not soldiers in war xx ❤️❤️ so much respect ❤❤

I think this is the first time you've been totally blown away by a video you were reacting to. Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to you and your family.

Love your reaction to this advert which still gets me every time I watch it. Wishing you and your family a Happy Christmas time. Keep safe and warm, all the best to you.

This was uplifting. It shows the power of shared values and emotions in our constant struggle to define our fragile humanity.

There’s something which you might be interested in checking out in your own time. It’s a music video by the band Sabaton. It’s called Christmas Truce. Again it’s the story of the Christmas truce back in 1914. It’s incredibly moving and they put such an extremely high amount in when it came to the production of the video. The lyrics are amazing and it’s such a heart warming moment in history. I wouldn’t suggest reacting to it on your channel with it being a music video (I know that’s not what your channel is about) but after watching this advert, and now knowing a little more about the story, you may find it interesting to hear it in song form? Merry Christmas to you and your family. Much love from England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Merry Christmas to you and your family. This is one of the best and most moving ads. A lot of us had family who served in the first world war

Happy Holidays Steve to you and yours. Beautiful ad not seen it in a few years made this grown man cry.

Merry Christmas to you, Steve and all your family. Thank you for a great channel, and we look forward to next year’s videos xx

Thanks for sharing. I've been watching a few of your vids and came across this one on Christmas Eve. Very moving and true story.

Thank you for all your videos this year Steve. Happy Christmas and very best wishes for 2023. 🇬🇧❤️🇺🇸xx

Love you seeing your journey Happy Christmas to you all

For a tiny bit of context, Christmas ads in the UK are a HUGE thing, far bigger than what is probably the closest comparable thing - superbowl ads in the US. Some companies really go all out, some people spend all year waiting for the christmas ads.

Seasons greetings to you Steve. We have been cold here for a couple of weeks but its mild now, nothing like you are experiencing. Best Wishes to you and your family this Christmas, from Wales. The German and British trenches in WW1 were often quite close, and it showed that both sides could get on with each other, ordinary men put in an impossible position by mad people in power, not much changes. 🎄

Thank you for doing these clips, I have learnt so much with you and live in the UK. MERRY CHRISTMAS 🎅 🎄

In 1960s were taught to sing the carol in both English and German. Almost 60 years later, I can still sing it in German.

Grat advert still gives me goose bumps. Have a great Christmas.

My grandfathers were both soldiers in the trenches WW1. They lied about their ages to get in and one was only 15. I don't think they were fully trained xmas 1914 so missed this one beautiful moment. Neither of them ever really fully recovered from the experience of that dreadful conflict. Love this advert

That truce had one hell of an effect for several days even week parts of the British and German lines didn't even want to fight each other.

Mate, this has the biggest bloke blubbering (Love a good alliteration). Gets me going every time. I used to love talking to my nan before she died about WW2, she had dementia and this helped as they are very strong memories.

I have an ancestor who was right there, singing Silent Night with the Germans. Truces like this broke out all over the front line (almost exclusively between British and German trenches, not French etc), but this particular song is associated with Ploegsteert (known as "Plug Street") in Belgium. The ONLY inaccuracy in this footage is the trenches themselves- that early in the war they were much shallower, narrower and more susceptible to collapse. At Ploegsteert you had to actually climb out of the trench to let another soldier walk past you because the trench was so small. The trenches there were also "waist deep in water" (although if the trench was that bad on Christmas Day itself is debatable). You will notice none of the British soldiers have steel helmets, only cloth caps- steel helmets weren't issued for nearly another year after this. The trench at Ploegsteert was only TWENTY FEET from the German trench, which was why it was easy for them to sing carols together and shout over an offer of a truce to the other side. In some parts of the front line there was a ceasefire only to bury the dead (with soldiers from both sides attending burial services), in some places they set specific time frames for a ceasefire, in some they agreed only to fire into the air etc etc. And yes there were football matches at several places along the front lines- at Ploegsteert there is still a tradition where people from all over the world bring their footballs to leave at a memorial there to mark the spot. At Ploegsteert the truce was to last for an entire week, with only one man killed in that time "by accident". Fighting only resumed on 2nd January... the day my ancestor was killed. I'm kind of glad he'd been reminded of the better side of humanity and didn't live long enough to see the horror and squalor of later battles like the Somme. The reasons why the truces nearly always happened between British and Germans trenches relate to our shared history- only 15yrs earlier we'd had a Queen who had been married to a German, and several of their children had married into German royalty. By 1914 the thrones of both Germany and Russia were inhabited by cousins of our own King (if you want a quick game of "spot the difference", search for images of Britain's George V and Russia's Nicholas II lol). And our history went way back a thousand years before that- there was an account from the truce of one of the Germans exclaiming "why are we fighting? We are Saxons- you are Anglo-Saxons! We are brothers!". Unfortunately the guys back in London didn't take kindly to the soldiers' new-found friendships and the order came down that any further fraternisation with the enemy would be severely punished, so it didn't happen in subsequent years. But yes I love this commercial. I cry every time I see it. They deliberately didn't use "famous" actors because they didn't want it to be about celebrity- they wanted every viewer to kind of imagine those soldiers as their ancestors. They made it almost exclusively about the soldiers and barely even mentioned their brand name. And that bar of chocolate pictured... they released as a limited edition bar in their stores then gave all the profits to the Royal British Legion (a UK veterans charity).

Still my favourite Christmas ad to this day. I think it was a beautiful tribute to the event. AFAIK in some fronts the truce lasted until at most the 30th Dec

It's a true story. That's what I love about it

I love that this really happened....

Wow! I've been watching your videos over recent weeks and felt compelled to subscribe. I'm very impressed with your respect and humbleness and this one shows those qualities in abundance. I love your channel and your journey its amazing. I'm England born to Irish parents. Merry Christmas friend.

You can't beat the true spirit of christmas

Merry Christmas, Steve, hope you and the family have a wonderful Christmas, keep safe in the wild weather, thank you for a great channel 😊🎄🇬🇧

A Very Happy Christmas to you and your family Steve. You are such a nice man.

Just shows that peace was in their hearts but the powers that be far away and safe could and would use these brave men, the first world war and the images are deeply poignant, i remember as a kid watching world at war, .....my dad served in WW2 volunteering to protect merchant ships, also in NA, he felt so sad as his own dad had served in WW1 and our leaders did not learn, ..... this is a very powerful advert, i wish that leaders that chose conflict and aggression in our world today could watch this ...... Christmas greetings from Somerset UK

I love your videos. You know your stuff! - Random British person you will never hear of again. (Merry Christmas and a happy new year)

Keep safe and have a great Christmas Steve and family.🎅☃🎄🎁

The best advert of all time

When the ad first came out, I didn't bat an eyelid. Then I read a book on the World Wars 2 years later, and that's where I learnt of this event. Ever since then, this ad remains my all-time fave Xmas ad, and top 5 ads in general.

The advert makes me emotional every time

He gave his chocolate to him. Christmas is for sharing

I think there were two very watery eye there and rightfully so. This is without doubt the greatest christmas advery ever. The level of detail in it was researched endlessly to get everything right. I watched this on Christmas Eve and the conflict in Ukraine automatically came to mind. Cant see this happening there unfortunatly. God bless Ukraine and it wonderful people.

A great ad to watch. Keep warm and I hope you and your family have a good Christmas.

I go by fahrenheit...I'm old-school. I hear the iguanas are falling out of the trees in Florida. This unofficial WW1 truce actually happened.

Steve, Merry Christmas to you and all your family. This is still the best Christmas advert of ALL time. Merry Christmas Everyone

I remember seeing this commercial on tv for the first time on 2014 and had me in tears and it still moves moves me. There are videos of the making of this ad on RU-vid somewhere.

Love vou Steve, Live long and prosper.

No Christmas advert has been as touching as this one, makes me cry every time. Agree with pp that John Lewis has great Christmas ads, my favorite is the Christmas 2012, find the older ones better imo. On a lighter note the Sainsburys ad from 2015 " Mogs Christmas Calamity" is funny then touching, another one for charity. Happy Christmas to you and your family ☃️🎁🎄 Hope the weather warms up!

Merry Christmas from Scotland your videos are really good stay safe

Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to all

We've been watching your weather develop on the news and feel for you. It will probably impact really badly on your wildlife and homeless too. Keep warm and keep safe. Love your reactions.

Thanks Steve for all your vids..Have learnt so much about my country from you..This advert was heartfelt perfect for Xmas eve..Happy Christmas and stay warm from a mild London 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🇺🇸

And Merry Christmas 🎄☃️🎄🎄☃️🎁🎁🎅⭐

My grandfather was there he said he sat down and looked at each others familys. After he could not shoot at them as they had come to see them as men not the enemy. They were all moved to different areas to get them to fight again. I know that it really effected him

Hi I remember seeing this advert it's great. Merry Christmas to you and yor family

When they shook hands and played football I cried

Happy Christmas

Completely true story too. As Blackadder would say in the great 'Blackadder Goes Forth,' "We made up more ground in one Christmas piss up than we would for the next four years!"

Excellent honest reaction, bud. That the next day & for sometime after that they had to fight again? Is indeed sad. But it adds something, to that Christmas day. It was a long 'moment'. Merry Christmas.

I work for Sainsburys and remember when they released this advert. All war and conflict is a terrible thing but WW1 was at that point were the older styles of combat such as what had been used in the nepoleonic and Victorian era had definitely ended. 17 million people died, sometimes over a few 100 metres of mud. Strangly I watched the Netflix version of All quiet on the western front yesterday. Brutal!