Even though Lithuania was famously the last area of Europe to convert to Christianity, the country has since embraced many traditions related to Christmas. And since every culture that observes Christmas might celebrate it differently, it seems like a good time of the year to discuss what Lithuanians do for this important Christian holiday.
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28 Comments
Amazing video 👏🙏
You are wrong. You can't have a white smoothie on Christmas Eve because it has mayonnaise. We eat 12 dishes of herring, fish, mushrooms with oil, poppy and fruit.
Is it normal for a Lithuanian to shove a pickled herring in your mouth whilst you're asleep at 7am around Christmas time? I asked her what she was doing and she said "it's tasty". She thought it was endearing, I thought it was strange.
I think that only Christian traditions are displaying the Nativity scene and going to the mass in a church. Not all people do that though. All other traditions come from the pagan times and are remnants of the winter soltice celebration. Lithuanian Christmas is more pagan than Christian, even the Lithuanian name for Christmas, Kalėdos, comes from the pagan times. Herring in bedding wasn't a thing before soviet occupation. Although I eat this dish sometimes when I have a chance it's not something we have on our Christmas Eve/Christmas table. Balta mišrainė wasn't a thing in those back days either, it''s never served during Christmas Eve (because it contains eggs and mayo), only on Christmas day and other festivities that doesn't require fasting.
im actually lithuanian and yes the 12 foods stand for the 12 months of the year .
In some parts off lithuaina you have crushed up weed with salt i hear this is prevelant in the coastal areas. You just have a small bowl off it and you dip your potatoes in it and it tastes super good.
I once remember when my mom put some of it for my family wich comes from eastern žemaitija (Lowlands) region off lithuaina they looked at her as some sort off crazy.
P.s there might not be salt in it, as ive not made it yet, but it tastes salty so im just guessing
You forgot that in the midnight animals talk and also water becomes wine, but who uses these miracles on purpose, d!3s the next day, but who just comes to this situation randomly, becomes rich
(and I had a dream that my cat was talking🙃)
Very good description of main traditions.
Despite the name calling christmas a christian holiday is a misnomer. The holiday predates christianity as well as most traditions we associate with the holiday. Maybe with the sole exception of gift giving.
On Kūčios my family would go to my grandmas(dad) house where we would eat usually there were more than 12 dishes because there were 13 of us, but the rule was to taste at least 12 dishes, before eating we would have, as I have been calling it in my head, "The church wafer", though we aren't really religious. Then after dinner we would relax and just enjoy eachother company, after a while the adults would lure out the kids out of the room with the Christmas tree and hide the presents there, later saying that we missed Santa, anyway after unwrapping presents we chill for an hour or so, help clean up(because grandma is old and has enough housekeeping chores as is) and go home. The next day we would visit our grandma on mom's side and spend the day with them(unfortunately both of them have past). The next day would be spent just at home.
Shortly, the Lithuanian Christmas Eve means all day hunger + the vegan evening table with little fat, lots of fish, mushrooms, nuts, berries, vegetables and not sweet pastries, poppy seed “milk”, . Christmas is meat meals, sweet meals, wine, fat and all you want.
This video might as well be a documentary, because it's 100% true
Tradition or no tradition, I cannot leave dirty dishes to fester 🙈
Great Channel, happy I came across it, as I moved to LT in 2020, you share a lot of good info. Grazie 😉
I always wanted to ask if the tradition of almost every city building a Christmas tree is a thing only in Lithuania.
It is good to hear that the Christmas season is here but I don't like that the prices for everything is sky rocketed 🙁 this is gonna be a bad season
I heard that if u hear animals talking, u either die soon or hear ur death date
I really have a hard time not being able to eat any eggs, milk nor meat during Xmas eve 😔 as a Spanish guy married to a Lithuanian woman. In Spain most dishes will likely contain at least one of those 3 ingredients 😅, so we reserve them for Xmas day
Herring and White salad mentioned in the video are Soviet relics and is not traditional lithuanian Christmas eve meals. Even though white salad is heavily consumed it is made of dairy, eggs an mayo which are not allowed during Christmas eve.
A bit of misinformation there🫠
What we leave are not dirty dishes. By this we share our meal with our ancestors, and this is the remnant tradition from an old religion.
Christmas Eve is definitely a very old tradition, much older than Christianity. (Here it is not so old, in Samogitia at 1413 it just started). Strict anti-cholesterol food restrictions were applied 4 weeks before Christmas and 7 weeks before Easter. The main course at Christmas Eve (Kučios) is called Kūčia. It is made all around here and is just various grains or just wheat grains cooked and sweetened with honey. More modern variety of Kūčia is Kūčiukai – dry very simple wheat cookies made with no milk nore eggs and served in sweet poppy milk. Then you add to your table whatever you have – mushrooms, beats, fish (herring, used to be available fish). One extra plate is added on the table for our family diseased join us on Christmas Eve. It is also very good to invite lonely neighbors, foreigners, etc., that people would not be left alone on Christmas Eve. While Christmas means Christ is born, all restrictions are over. Some good meat and tasty vine are served or whatever best you have.
as an American married to a Lithuanian and living in the USA, we celeberate Kucias every year on December 24th. We do the "traditional" Kucias, with 12 dishes and then do a "typical" American Christmas morning/day. It's a nice blend of her culture and mine.
Yeah, we open our gifts on Christmas Eve and I was always jealous of Americans in the movies waking up on Christmas and running to the Christmas tree to find a pile of presents in the morning :/
Great video! 💖Really love your appreciation for this small country, it's very heartwarming 🙂
Su Šv. Kalėdom!! 💚❤💚❤
My family has some multicultural aspects to most of the festivities, so when it comes to Christmas, we celebrate all 3 days. All three are celebrated in a similar fashion to how it's normal in Lithuania with some touches of other relevant cultures.
So Christmas eve is all the usual 12 dishes, wine & bread, kūčiukai and so on. But we also exchange sort of token gifts. Those are symbols and tokens of Christian as well as pagan backgrounds. For example last Christmas eve I got an amber cross, a statuette of a snake called "Žaltys" (an important being in Baltic paganism) , a little runic stone and a Mjolnir necklace ( that's Thor's hammer ).
The first Christmas day, which is the 25th, is a day where you celebrate with those closest to you, which is normally your family, but it might vary. On this day you eat absolutely anything you like, the staple dish of this day varies from home to home. This is the day where we exchange all the gifts we wanted and asked for. So it could be anything from money to a phone, clothes or anything of the sort.
Second Christmas day, the 26th is practically the same as the first one, but on this day you celebrate with everyone you like. On this day our house does not have enough space to fit everyone we'd like to invite, but the guests are usually anyone from close friends to co-workers, neighbours and anyone else. We also exchange gifts, but those are normally more "generic" gifts. So for example if you are a kid, you likely will just get some sweets, maybe some money or a toy, while adults normally get some alcohol and maybe something on the side, like a box of chocolates or something.
And all throughout this period, you eat. You eat A LOT. People put enormous effort into making all this fine food and if you are a guest visiting and you don't eat your fill properly, the hosts might be quite displeased. 😬
on chrismtas eve animals speak, but if you listen to them you will hear them discussing your death, this is the correct myth
Right on, pretty accurate I should say.
My family wasn't very religious but on Christmas Eve we, the kids, were always encouraged to keep calm, not to be too noisy and refrain from eating candy as well as meat, which meant that we barely ate anything cause we all hated herring, mushrooms and whatnot. The way we observed it, Christmas Eve is a day of respectful anticipation for the Christmas miracle that's coming tomorrow.