Welcome to That Eurovision Site’s 2024 Advent Calendar! Each day at 10:00CET we’ll be highlighting one of our favourite holiday themed songs from across the Eurovision sphere! Today is the 24th of December and our featured song today is “Ateina Kalėda” by Baltos Varnos, who competed in Lithuania’s national final in 2020 with “Namų dvasia” and 2024 with “In The Night”. Happy Holidays!
Behind the 24th door on the TES Advent Calendar is…
About “Ateina Kalėda”
“Ateina Kalėda”, “Christmas is coming” in Lithuanian, was released November 29th, 2024, coming out just in time to make it into the Official TES Advent Calendar. Baltos Varnos wrote and produced the song. Joining them in producing the track was Germanas Skoris. Besides Baltos Varnos, he also has worked with Lithuanian NF acts Žalvarinis and Rokas Poviliu. Germanas also has also produced for Marijonas Mikutavičius, former member of 2006 Eurovision act LT United. The song, in typical Baltos Varnos style, is a warm and cozy guitar track that gives Milda and Terese a lot of space to sing by themselves and together. Their modern singer-songwriter sound is combined with traditional musical motifs. Lyrically, the song invites the listener to embrace the holiday spirit and reminds us all of the value of spending these days of the year with your loved ones.
What do we think?
This song is absolutely gorgeous. The vocals are smooth, the guitar sounds warm. It all just feels like drinking a cup of hot chocolate in front of a fireplace. Baltos Varnos sound amazing vocally as always, and their voices are perfect for a warm, comforting song such as this. The music also deserves a lot of praise for highlighting the twins’ voices just right. Now, this is the point where I will have to admit that I don’t understand Lithuanian and that the actual lyrics of this song are basically impossible to find. So I can’t actually say much about those. But what I can say is that the Lithuanian language has certain qualities to it that really lend themselves to this kind of music. Oh, and this has nothing to do with the song but it does remind me of this excellent moment in video games.
Baltos Varnos’ Eurovision Journey
Baltos Varnos, which translates to White Crows, consists of twins Milda and Terese Andrijauskaitė. The duo first became part of the Extended Eurovision Universe in 2020. They competed in Pabandom iš naujo! that year with “Namų dvasia” (Home spirit). They finished second in Heat 1, but were barely eliminated by finishing 5th in a very tough Semi-Final 1 that saw eventual PiN 2020 winners The Roop finish second. In 2024, the duo returned to the re-named and fully changed Lithuanian national final Eurovizija.LT. “In The Night” was a rare English language release for Baltos Varnos. They would once again strand in the semi-finals, finishing 5th once again.
The Full Advent Calendar
That’s all for this year! Miss a day? Here’s the full playlist of this year’s advent calendar songs, have a great rest of the holiday season!
What do you think of today’s song? As always, please let us know what you think by getting involved in the comments below. Also, be sure to follow ‘That Eurovision Site’ on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Threads, tumblr, and Bluesky for more information about Eurovision 2025!
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News Source – That Eurovision Site
Giwrgos Oiko