12/20/2025
The Christmas Goose
Long before plastic wrap and supermarket freezers, Christmas dinner had a story.
In old farm kitchens and candle-lit homes, the Christmas goose was a symbol of plenty…raised slowly, fed well, and saved for the one meal of the year that truly mattered. It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t trimmed down to uniform cuts. It was a whole bird, meant to feed a family gathered close, with drippings saved for potatoes, bones kept for soup, and leftovers stretching the blessing just a little longer.
A Christmas goose meant the year had been good enough.
That the land had provided.
That hands had worked, and God had been faithful.
Charles Dickens captured this perfectly in A Christmas Carol. The Cratchit family’s Christmas goose wasn’t extravagant or showy, it was cherished. It was the very best they had, saved all year, celebrated not for its size but for what it represented: love, gratitude, and a table surrounded by family. Long before turkeys filled ovens and magazines, the goose was the Christmas meal.
Somewhere along the way, that tradition faded. What was once common farm fare became rare. What every household once knew slowly became something few still taste, until the Christmas goose quietly earned the name delicacy. Not because it was meant to be exclusive, but because it was never meant to be mass-produced.
This year, we aren’t selling the Christmas goose.
We’re gathering our own family around the table, roasting it slowly, honoring the old ways, and remembering why food like this mattered in the first place. Not for novelty. Not for trends. But for gratitude, for tradition, and for the simple joy of a meal made from land you know and animals you raised.
Not just dinner…
but a memory made.
“God bless us, every one.”
— Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
