Bathrooms across the Czech Republic fill up with fish at this time of year as families prepare for a festive feast on Christmas Eve.

Carp is a traditional dish in much of eastern Europe at Christmas and vats of live fish have appeared in towns and villages all over Bohemia and Moravia.

Many are killed on the spot but plenty of Czech families keep them at home in the weeks before Christmas where they often become part of the family until they suddenly disappear.

In the run up to Christmas in Prague and across the Czech Republic, the carp sellers set up vats in the streets teeming with fish.

Carp fishery in Prague

The BBC's Janet Barry went to a fishery on the outskirts of Prague where carp seller Yaroslav Shima helps his customers pick the healthiest specimen.

For the squeamish among them he will kill them too.

But he does not like killing them. "I like fish," he says.

Carp and potato salad on Christmas Eve is a centuries-old tradition, a throwback to the days when carp was served as the meal of choice because it could be caught for free.

Taking home the carp

It is the beginning of the end for 250 tons of carp.

They have come 100 kilometres from the farms of south Bohemia and are destined for the Christmas dinner tables of Prague.

Milosalv Baloun, Nina Bukharova and six-year-old Juliya are taking theirs home alive.

Many Czech families give their carp a home in the bath to clean them out before its time to eat them.

Pet fish in the bath

Generations of Czech children have grown up with a pet carp in the month of December but mysteriously disappears the day before Christmas.

Mr Baloun says: "We buy a carp every year and keep it in the bath tub for the kids to play with. Then after a day or two we hit it on the head with a meat tenderiser."

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