With customers and friends now in 25 Eurozone countries, we really enjoy hearing your accounts of different Christmas traditions. Of course, there’s just a chance some of you are pulling our leg, so if we have been told an old wives’ tale and you know different, do please add your comments to our blog!

We especially like some of the older traditions we heard of from Lithuania, such as spreading hay on the Christmas Eve dinner table and covering with a clean white cloth, to symbolize Christ being born in a manger full of hay. And what a lovely touch to put a place setting with a lit candle for any family member who has died in the past year.

Family Christmas reunions are important in many European countries, with family members going to great lengths to be at the table for the main feast. In Lithuania, as in many Catholic countries, this takes place on Christmas Eve. Following old traditions, the house is first thoroughly cleaned from top to bottom and clean linen put on the beds.

Special dishes called kucios are prepared, of which there are 12, commemorating Christ’s 12 apostles, and all are meat-free though may include dried or cooked fish. Unleavened bread or dievo pyragas is also served and can symbolise luck for the coming year.

Children in Lithuania were told that at a certain time on Christmas Eve, the water in the well would turn to wine and the animals in the stable would be able to speak like humans. And the marriage prospects of young women could be foretold with straws or kindling sticks.

At least, that’s what we’ve been told – but do you know any better? If you live in Lithuania or have visited there, do tell us, are these old traditions still practised there? We’d love to know!