It's cold today, so cold that when my nose runs it freezes to the tip instead of dripping off. My breath fogs in the early morning chill and sweeping mists obscure our view of the enemy position. My friend passes me a tin cup of black tea, after adding a dash of brandy from his hip flask. The hot liquid burns my throat but I guzzle it anyway, ignoring the pain and revelling in the momentary warmth it provides me.

Other soldiers are milling around, the thick mud clinging tenaciously to their boots, but there's a lot to be done, loading weapons, checking supplies, drinking tea. The general mood is apprehensive following yesterday's events and few of us want to fight, but we have our orders. I take a cigarette from my pocket and offer one to my friend who declines. Once lit I draw deeply, letting a thin stream of blue smoke trail slowly from my pursed lips as I look out across the battlefield.

Battlefield? Huh.

Yesterday it was nothing of the sort, but the days, weeks and months before that it was a land of pain and death. Today it will be so again. At about nine a.m. yesterday morning while burying our dead, one of the sentries spotted an odd thing. A white flag was being waved from an enemy trench, and after that a small group of the 'Gronies' made a slow and careful path across 'No Man's Land' towards us. One of our Gronamian-speaking officers went over the top with several soldiers and met the group halfway.

Half an hour went by without gunshot before the officer returned with a strange request from the enemy. Due to the significance of that particular day for them, they suggested that there be no fighting, at all. Our officer agreed as it was an important time for us also and suggested we play football. The Gronams certainly weren't expecting that but nor were they adverse to the suggestion and went away immediately to clear room for a pitch and find a suitable ball. We were ordered to do the same.

By eleven a.m. we had enough barbed wire cleared for a good size playing area and several makeshift balls. They weren't too hard to come by and after all the game had once been played with animal bladders, so anything would do so long as it was round and didn't break your toes when you kicked it. There were, at a guess, around forty men/reptiles assembled on the pitch, which meant we had to make several small pitches rather than one single large one. Our helmets made perfect goal posts as did the Gronies' battle staffs and at half past the games began.

I've no idea of scores or who won the individual games and which was the victorious side overall, in fact I don't think there was one soldier out there, Gronam or Human that paid the slightest attention to the scores, we all just forgot ourselves for a few hours. Forgot who they were and why we were all here. For that day only we were no longer enemies. One Gronam soldier, Krut, said to me, "In this way, Christmas, your festival of love, and Blinterwine our time of celebration, has managed to bring mortal enemies together for a short time as friends. Why not forever?"

I had no answer for his question but felt exactly the same as he did.

I met many enemy soldiers that day though we only exchanged first names. We all agreed to meet again but their superiors had them moved to another area of the battlefront for fraternising with the enemy. Tomorrow business would resume as usual but at least I wasn't going to be shooting at my new friends.

Despite not knowing who had won the games or who had won overall, I felt we all deserved to feel victorious. We all deserved to feel like winners. With the small conversations I had, I discovered that the Gronies are no different from us. Like us they all have wives and families waiting for them, and as we take our orders without question from Hague, so to do they from their commander.

We are all simple men fighting a war for politicians and ego-mad generals. We must all follow our orders or face the barrel of a gun for cowardice. We both charge through minefields towards spluttering machine-guns, and we all look up at the same sky at night, dreaming of peace.

I am amazed and overjoyed that one day without bloodshed has been shared by both sides thanks to a coincidence of traditional celebrations and a simple game that is hundreds of years old. Today is different though. Today we're all back in our trenches. Back in the clinging wet mud, re-reading old letters from loved ones, cleaning and loading our rifles and waiting for the whistle to sound before we climb the ladders and go over the top once more. Diary entry of Private Frederick Buswell, Northamptonshire Light Infantry, 26th of December 2114.