With a three-day Christmas cease-fire in Northern Ireland and Santa Claus returning to the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip for the first time in six years, peace appeared a little closer at hand in some places.
But not everywhere.Shelling in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo killed two people and wounded at least 34 Friday, despite a holiday truce on Christmas Eve. The city has been besieged for 20 months by Serb gunners and snipers.
A French U.N. soldier was killed Friday night by automatic gunfire in the Muslim enclave of Bihac in northwest Bosnia, near where French Defense Minister Francois Leotard was spending Christmas with French troops.
Following the deaths of eight people and the wounding of 50 others on Thursday, the same day peace talks sponsored by the European Community collapsed, Sarajevo faced a tense Christmas.
"In our suffering city, like elsewhere in Bosnia-Herzegovina, we are celebrating Christmas counting our dead and wounded," Monsignor Vinko Puljic, spiritual leader of Bosnia's Roman Catholics, said in a radio address.
In other trouble spots, there were tentative signs of peace.
In the Gaza Strip, a Santa Claus - this year waving a Palestinian flag - visited children for the first time since an uprising against Israeli occupation began six years ago.
Schoolchildren sang Arabic and English renditions of "Jingle Bells" and "Silent Night," as Gaza City's tiny Christian minority celebrated the holiday more openly than they have for some time.
They were encouraged by the Sept. 13 peace accord between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
"The accord gave us hope for peace and freedom," said Father Jalil Awwad, head of the school and pastor of the Latin Family Church.
But that optimism and the Christmas cheer was tempered Friday when Palestinian gunmen in Gaza City ambushed an Israeli army jeep, killing a lieutenant colonel and wounding another officer.
This holiday also marks the first major celebration of Christmas in Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank, since the Palestinian uprising began in 1987.
On Friday, the Israeli army gave up - at least for Christmas - its efforts to stop Palestinians from flying their flag atop city hall.
In Northern Ireland, the outlawed Irish Republican Army on Friday began a three-day cease-fire in its efforts to end British rule.
Hopes of peace have been buoyed since British Prime Minister John Major and Irish Prime Minister Albert Reynolds on Dec. 15 announced a "framework for peace" in Northern Ireland.
The IRA has said there will be no quick response to this peace initiative. Major and Reynolds had hoped the IRA would extend its cease-fire - which may also give London a break from IRA bombings - beyond the traditional 72 hours, but that didn't happen.
In Vatican City, the faithful and the curious gathered Friday around a 99-foot Christmas tree from Austria and a life-size nativity scene in St. Peter's Square as Pope John Paul II prayed for "a new beginning."
In a text of his homily for Christmas Eve midnight Mass, the Polish-born pope proclaimed the "joyful news" of the birth of Christ, declaring "let humanity rejoice."
"Gathered in this holy place, at the tomb of the Apostle, we are in communion with all those who, in every corner of the world, are taking part in this same liturgy."