If you go back far enough, you’ll find a pagan root for anything. But that doesn’t explain the continuing popularity among Czechs for baking Christmas sweets, from chocolate-topped baskets filled with nuts, to gingerbread fish, dusted vanilla rolls, and doughy wasp-nests oozing egg-liqueur. Just make sure you hold out on sampling them until Dec. 24 — legend says you’d be inviting misfortune.