Who gives the “national speech” on TV on Christmas Day?

7 comments

1. That is not a thing here, no one speaks to the nation on Christmas-day, on account of us being a secular nation. We however have ‘Prinsjesdag’ (Prince’s day), the third tuesday in september, when the government presents the budget for next year. The King gives the ‘troonrede’ (the King’s speech) to go with it, live on national TV.

2. The president gives a speech on Christmas

   The chancellor gives a speech on new year’s eve.

3. As far as I remember the Presidential Pair gave their wishes at 19 or 20 to the nation on Christmas Eve, sometimes followed by the Primate of Poland (though that has been largely abandoned by now)

   Buuuut, I checked and this year the only one was some bishop? Wonder why and whether not watching TVP made me miss a shift

4. In Sweden, the King [Karl XVI Gustaf] gives out his annual Christmas speech each Christmas Day –> [https://www.svtplay.se/video/jqWAJo3/h-m-konungens-jultal-3](https://www.svtplay.se/video/jqWAJo3/h-m-konungens-jultal-3)

   While In Ireland, the President Michael D Higgins gives it out. Although he doesn’t give it out on TV. [https://president.ie/en/diary/details/christmas-message-from-president-michael-d-higgins-22](https://president.ie/en/diary/details/christmas-message-from-president-michael-d-higgins-22)

5. The main “Christmas day” here is not the 25th, but the 24th, so nobody gives a speech on Christmas Day.

   But there isn’t really a TV speech on the Eve either, rather [the Christmas Peace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Peace) declaration in Turku at noon, and it’s the same every year.

   From 2013 it’s been read by Mika Akkanen, the head of protocol of the city of Turku.

6. We don’t have a Christmas national speech, but we have a national speech on New Year’s Eve. It is given by the President of Republic (currently Sergio Mattarella). It starts at 8.30pm and lasts about half an hour.

7. In Spain it’s the King, every year on 24 December at 21:00 he gives a speech that’s shown on every channel talking about the general state of the country over the year, I’m not sure how many people actually watch it actively (in my family this year no one watched it at least) but it’s still pretty popular and talked about, and it gave us some iconic sentences like “me llena de orgullo y satisfacción” from Juan Carlos’ speeches

   In Asturias the message is on New Year’s Eve, by the President (currently Adrián Barbón) and it also just talks about the general state of the country, it’s not super popular but it’s always broadcast on our regional public broadcaster TPA, and since a couple of years ago now he talks in both Spanish and Asturian which is really nice (and really really long overdue)