With all of the time constraints and institutional pressures that teachers face, it may seem odd to suggest using an anomalous event such as the Christmas Truce to study the first World War. However, the uniqueness of this event helps grab the attention of students and, as the authors demonstrate, can be used both to illustrate the common meta-narrative of the war (and its limits) and to meet major curriculum standards. Middle and high school teachers are familiar with the thematic strands in the curriculum standards for social studies: (1) "Culture"; (2) "Time, Continuity, and Change"; (3) "People, Places, and Environments"; (4) "Individual Development and Identity"; (5) "Individuals, Groups, and institutions"; (6) "Power, Authority, and Governance"; (7) "Production, Distribution, and Consumption"; (8) "Science, Technology, and Society"; (9) "Global Connections"; and (10) "Civic Ideals and Practices." In this article, the authors offer a way to think about the war in a manner that meets curriculum requirements, engaging students with an event that is now almost a century in the past and (in their view) unrelated to the current world. They illustrate how the Christmas Truce narrative encompasses each of the ten thematic strands that comprise the essence of the social studies. (Contains 27 notes.)