Czech president to give Christmas message instead of New Year speeches

Instead of giving the traditional New Year speeches, Czech President Milos Zeman will deliver Christmas message on December 26 from the Lany presidential chateau in central Bohemia, said Zeman's spokesman Jiri Ovcacek on Thursday. Ovcacek said that Zeman hopes to follow up the habit from interwar Czechoslovakia when similar speeches were delivered by Czechoslovak President Tomas Garrigue Masaryk (1918-1935). He said the Christmas message, which would last 20 minutes, was to have the "Christmas atmosphere" and the head of state would probably speak "from memory." "Maybe the first directly elected president will evaluate the past year," said Ovcacek. Zeman's predecessors Vaclav Havel (1993-2003) and Vaclav Klaus (2003-2013) gave new year speeches to Czech citizens on January 1. The first presidential speech was delivered by Klement Gottwald (1948-1953) on January 1. Before that, Czech heads of state were speaking to the nation at Christmas time.