Christmas Eve is the biggest holiday in Lithuania, where it is better known as KÅ«Äios [pronounced Koo-chas]. Celebrating it with one’s family is so important that even six months ahead of Christmas it is virtually impossible to get a flight from Ireland to Lithuania, and everyone is anxiously expecting new flights to be announced, claims ArÅ«nas Teišerskis, director of the Lithuanian Association of Ireland (LBA).
Christmas Eve is the biggest holiday in Lithuania, where it is better known as KÅ«Äios [pronounced Koo-chas].
Celebrating it with one’s family is so important that even six months ahead of Christmas it is virtually impossible to get a flight from Ireland to Lithuania, and everyone is anxiously expecting new flights to be announced, claims ArÅ«nas Teišerskis, director of the Lithuanian Association of Ireland (LBA).
Not everyone goes home, though, and the availability of eastern European shops in Ireland makes it easier for Lithuanians to celebrate here. Teišerskis himself is preparing his Dublin home for a traditional Lithuanian Christmas dinner.
“This year my mother is coming to Ireland for Christmas,” he says. “She wants to see her grandchildren.”
A traditional Christmas dinner in Lithuania consists of no less than 12 dishes or courses, all of them totally devoid of meat or milk.
“Christmas Eve is the last day of lent,” explains Teišerskis. “We’re not allowed to eat meat or milk products, so most of the dishes are from vegetables, fruit, mushrooms and such. Sometimes you’d have fish. You don’t have to eat all the food, but you have to try every dish that’s on the table.”
A Lithuanian Christmas is never complete without one thing – traditional sugar-free biscuits covered with ‘poppy milk’. “They’re called KuÄiukai [Koo-choo-kai],” says Teišerskis. “They’re cylindrical in shape. Traditionally you’d pour poppy milk over them just like you pour normal milk over cereal.”
Poppy milk can be produced by simply grating poppy seeds and adding some hot water. Both the seeds and the biscuits are sold in eastern European shops across Ireland.
The dinner itself only starts after the first star appears in the sky, and Lithuanians do not normally clean the table after the meal.
“If you clean the table after Christmas dinner you will have bad luck in the next year – that’s what they say, anyway,” says Teišerskis. “You’re meant to leave all the food on the table until next morning and then have breakfast with the leftovers. Only then can you take the food away.”
Lithuanians also have many traditional divinations which are practiced on Christmas Eve.
One tradition involves laying a small heap of hay on the dinner table before covering it with a tablecloth and serving the food. Then at dinner, the family members take turns to take straws from under the tablecloth – the longer the straw, the longer you will live, according to an ancient belief.
Another divination involves unmarried girls going to a barn and taking as many logs as they can carry. They then bring the logs into the house and count them. If the number is even, then – as tradition has it – the girl will get married in the next year.
Will Teišerskis’s family practice any of these ancient Lithuanian customs? “Not really,” he replies. “My eldest daughter is just 12. Besides, it’s hard to find logs in Dublin. Unless you’re willing to use peat briquettes instead.”
