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The first thing to know about a Finnish Christmas is the date. Christmas Eve, 24 December, is the day. The big meal, the presents, the sauna and Santa's visit all happen on the Eve. Christmas Day is quiet, a day for leftovers and staying in. By the evening of the 24th the country has in effect stopped.
This page is about how Finns spend Christmas, where the markets are in 2026, and what that means for a visitor, from Helsinki to Lapland. Dates and hours were checked on 28 September 2026.
Christmas Eve, hour by hour
Families do it differently, but the shape of the day is remarkably consistent.
Morning: rice porridge. Breakfast is riisipuuro, rice pudding cooked slowly in milk, with cinnamon and sugar, or with a prune and raisin soup. One almond goes into the pot, and whoever finds it is meant to have luck. Leftover porridge becomes a cold dessert with whipped cream.
Noon: the Christmas Peace. At 12:00 on 24 December, the Declaration of Christmas Peace is read from the balcony of the Brinkkala Mansion on the Old Great Square in Turku, in Finnish and Swedish. It has been broadcast on the radio since 1935 and live on television since 1983. The tradition is centuries old: the text declares that Christmas has begun and warns that anyone who breaks the peace will be dealt with more severely than usual. Most of the country watches it at home. Between 10,000 and 15,000 people stand in the square, and in 2022 about 18,000. The City of Turku's page on the declaration has the programme around it. Get there early if you want to see the balcony.
Afternoon: the cemetery. In the dusk of Christmas Eve, as many as three-quarters of Finnish families visit a cemetery, according to thisisFINLAND. They bring a candle in a glass lantern for the family grave and for the war graves. The custom spread in the 1920s, once candles became cheap. By four o'clock a big cemetery like Hietaniemi in Helsinki is a hillside of thousands of small flames in the snow, crowded and almost silent. Visitors are welcome. Walk slowly, keep your voice down, and do not photograph mourners.
Late afternoon: the Christmas sauna. Joulusauna is centuries old. It marks the end of the year's work and the start of the holiday, and it is taken before the meal. Traditionally it was taken in daylight, because the dark sauna belonged to the spirits. The Finnish sauna guide explains what happens in there.
Evening: the table. The joulupöytä is a buffet laid out all at once:
- Ham, baked with a mustard crust. In a 2018 survey it was on 82 percent of Christmas tables.
- Casseroles (laatikot) of swede, carrot and sweetened potato, the part of the meal that is most distinctly Finnish.
- Rosolli, a salad of beetroot, carrot, potato and pickled cucumber, with a pink whipped-cream dressing.
- Fish: gravlax, pickled herring and lye fish (lipeäkala) with white sauce, which divides every family.
- Prune tarts (joulutortut), star-shaped puff pastry, and gingerbread with the coffee.
What the dishes are and where to eat them outside Christmas is in the Finnish food guide.
Then Santa. Joulupukki knocks on the door in the evening, usually while one parent is conveniently out, and asks whether there are any good children here. Presents are opened on the Eve, not on Christmas morning.
Christmas Day and after
25 December starts early for churchgoers: the Christmas morning service is traditionally at dawn, or before it. Yle's count is about a million people at church over the holidays, many of them otherwise never there. After church the day belongs to family, films and the rest of the ham. 26 December, St Stephen's Day, is a public holiday too, and it is when Finns go out again: to relatives, the cinema, or the ski track.
What closes
Christmas Day and St Stephen's Day are public holidays. As InfoFinland puts it, many shops and offices are closed. Christmas Eve is not an official holiday, but it behaves like one after midday. In practice:
- 24 December: shops open in the morning and close around midday. Most restaurants outside hotels are shut from the afternoon. Do your shopping on the 23rd.
- 25 December: nearly everything is closed. Hotel restaurants are the dependable option, so book one ahead.
- 26 December: things reopen gradually, and many restaurants stay shut until the 27th.
Public transport runs a holiday timetable, with fewer departures and early finishes on the 24th. When we checked on 28 September, neither the train nor the Helsinki transport timetables for Christmas 2026 had been published; the rail data still showed an ordinary day. Look them up in December before you plan a journey on the 24th or 25th.
The Christmas markets, 2026
| City | Where | Dates | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Helsinki | Senate Square (Tuomaan Markkinat) | 27 Nov – 22 Dec | Mon–Thu and Sun 11:00–19:00, Fri–Sat 11:00–20:00 |
| Turku | Old Great Square | weekends only: 28–29 Nov, 5–6, 12–13 and 19–20 Dec | – |
| Tampere | Keskustori (central square) | 28 Nov – 22 Dec, preview evenings 21–27 Nov | – |
Helsinki's market fills Senate Square below the cathedral, with an old carousel at its heart and a licensed food tent. The dates and hours are from Tuomaan Markkinat's own info page. It is small by Central European standards and good for it: wool, wood, ceramics, smoked fish and a mug of glögi, the Finnish mulled drink, with or without alcohol. It closes on the 22nd, so it is a market for the run-up rather than for Christmas itself. The events calendar has what else is on in Helsinki that week.
Turku's market on the Old Great Square is weekends only, and it is on the same square as the Christmas Peace declaration.
Tampere's is the biggest of the three, on the central square, with heated restaurant tents. Its glögi restaurant stays open on the 23rd and 24th, which makes it one of the few Christmas markets anywhere in Finland still trading on Christmas Eve.
Helsinki at Christmas
Helsinki does not do snow reliably. As the best time to visit guide puts it, a December trip to the capital means accepting there will probably be no snow, and the lights on Aleksanterinkatu and Esplanadi do the work that snow does further north. On the shortest day Helsinki gets 5h 48m of daylight, from a sun that barely clears the rooftops.
That is also why December in Helsinki is pleasant rather than magical. The markets, the lights, the sauna and a long lunch fill a short day well. The things to do in Helsinki guide lists what stays open.
Lapland at Christmas
Lapland is where the Christmas of the postcards is, and it is priced accordingly.
The light. Rovaniemi, on the Arctic Circle, has no polar night: at the solstice the sun still rises, for 2h 14m of daylight. That is the site's own figure, and the Rovaniemi daylight page has the whole winter. Further north it does not rise at all: Levi has no sunrise at the solstice, and the Levi daylight page shows how many days that lasts. Neither place is dark at noon. Around midday the sky goes through a long blue and pink twilight, which is the light that the photographs are taken in.
Santa Claus Village near Rovaniemi is at full capacity. From 30 November to 3 January, Santa's office is open every day from 08:00 to 20:00, including Christmas Eve, and entry is free. The Main Post Office, where letters get the Arctic Circle postmark, is open daily from 9:00 to 20:00 from 1 December to 6 January. Some smaller attractions in the village close early on the 24th. The Rovaniemi guide covers how to get there and what is worth paying for.
Prices. Everything costs more from late November to early January. A 5–7 minute reindeer ride in the village is €40 from 1 December to 10 January (€30 otherwise), and a husky ride at Bearhill is €169 in the same weeks, against €164. The hotels are the real difference. On 28 September two of the three Rovaniemi hotels we checked had no rooms for two left for 16 December. The third wanted €465 for a double it sells for €124 in October. The figures are in the cost of travelling in Finland.
The aurora. The long nights help, but darkness is not what decides it; cloud is. If the aurora is the point of the trip, the northern lights guide explains why late winter and early autumn are the better bets. If you are there anyway, tonight's Rovaniemi aurora page tells you whether it is worth going out.
If you are here for Christmas
- Eat the big meal on the 24th. Several hotel restaurants in Helsinki and Rovaniemi serve a Christmas Eve joulupöytä buffet. Book it in November.
- Go to a cemetery at dusk on the Eve. It is the most Finnish thing you can see at Christmas, and it costs nothing.
- Watch the Christmas Peace at noon, in Turku or on television.
- Stock up on the 23rd, and do not plan to travel on the afternoon of the 24th or on the 25th.
- For Lapland, book in the spring. By autumn the Christmas weeks are already selling out.