The City of Turku in Finland has now declared general Christmas Peace and we wish you all peaceful holidays!
Declaring Christmas Peace was a common custom of medieval towns in the Nordics, actual law in Sweden. The declaration has been given in Turku since 1300’s with very few exceptions. Nowadays it has no legal effect but originally crimes were punished more harshly if committed during Christmas Peace. Such legislation was needed, because suddenly having several days off would often result in a ruckus.
For the two past years there was no audience because of the pandemic, but now it was open for public again. Maybe even 15 000 people were on site listening to it live. It is televised and widely watched in Finland (by myself for example), and also in Sweden since 1986, and it’s globally available in the YLE streaming service although I have no idea whether it’s watched abroad except for Finnish emigrant.
Anyways it’s a local tradition and one that has meaning for me, particularly during such difficult times.
The translated text can be read on Wikipedia if anyone’s interested:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Peace