Somewhere in England,
Dec. 24th, 1940

Dear Mom and Dad,

"Twas the night before Christmas" - It is that tonight and literally there is not a creature stirring, no "not even a mouse". I have been writing steadily for weeks trying to catch up with my correspondence and at last I have succeeded - I think. I have literally been snowed under with parcels so far this year. I have received eleven to date and there is still tons of mail unsorted, so I guess there will be more mail coming in yet. I received your parcel OK. and I have opened it tonight. Everything is in first class condition. I don't know about the cake because I have not opened it. That is for our Xmas Dinner tomorrow. You see I am on duty all day tomorrow so Mrs. Barnett - my landlady, is going to give me my Christmas dinner. We are not going to have any turkey or chicken because of the prohibitive price (2/10 a lb.: nearly 68 cents a lb.). We are also very very short of meat, fruit, eggs and nuts. There is plenty of the stuff over here but it is all stored in the Midlands and due to the difficulties of Railway Transportation, they cannot get it down to us. But Mrs. Barnard has got some lovely beef and cake and puddings which she has made. The only thing she was short of was candy and I supplied that from inexhaustible supply.

The reason that I am on duty tomorrow is that I wanted to get New Year's Day off because I am going to Brighton. I have been invited to a huge celebration there on New Year's Eve and Auntie has invited me up for New Year's Day. Well I guess that is all for now. Goodbye for now. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year....I think I will.

Love,

Jim