December 26, 1943

Happy New Year. Hope you had a nice Christmas. We had quite a time here. The col., as you know, had been buzzing around here for a week or so insisting on opening the hospital, which he accomplished several days ago, but there were no patients. So he had the – Division surgeons over for Xmas eve dinner (noon) + told him to go on + send us some patients. And he did. We go six or eight patients on Christmas eve, of all times. Where upon the col. packed up + went back to Hq for Xmas dinner. You can imagine how happy everybody was, + no one was more disgusted than Gen Surg Team #24. So after the evening party for all personnel + some of the local civilian, consisting of a movie (Laurel + Hardy), beer, doughnuts, + cookies, the Team retired to the Officer Club + proceeded to hang one on. I think we were pretty well depressed over spending Christmas here, + most of the other people had gone off to midnight mass so we turned it into a very pleasant evening – by contrast. It couldn’t have been done without alcohol. Yesterday we had a pretty good dinner with turkey + everything, but nobody had much of a holiday because the patients continued to roll in + they all had to be worked up. We finished the day with a grand finale by doing an appendix at 10 PM. They talked to Maj. Stibbs into accepting the honor of doing the first operation so he + Capt. Sheppard did it while the rest of us stood around + watched. The whole thing went off with hardly a hitch to everyone’s delight + I think it was a considerable extent because Miss Barnett turned out to be a first class surgical nurse- also because the major is such a perfect gentleman. If this outfit could get rid of some of its administrative misfits + maybe get some more dependable nurses in place of several scatterbrained ? it would be a good organization. I’m on a septic surgery + I have one patient, with a hemorrhoid, which we will fix up tomorrow.
I opened your presents Xmas eve + found a most amazing collection of nice things. I wish I had known about the hot water pad the night we got back from Carrickfergus. My feet stayed cold almost all night. I don’t know what those chocolate things are- they seem to be neither fudge nor brownies- but they are good. I thank you all very very much for those + all the other things. Maybe I can have you too next Christmas + Toots + Willy to make it a real Christmas. Give everybody my love but remember it’s mostly for you yourself.

B.