Doesn’t Scrooge send a big turkey to the Cratchit household?
No, it was a goose. The fattest one, IIRC.
I don’t think so. The Cratchits were having goose; Scrooge sent the young boy to get the large turkey hanging in the butcher’s window.
Damn. Per wikipedia, you’re right: Turkey.
Makes me feel all the more foolish, since just a week or so ago, I was yelling at the Muppets that they got it wrong!
I did a short search to fact check myself: https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2021/12/scrooges-prize-turkey-victorian-christmas-foodways-in-dickenss-a-christmas-carol/
Even @Harters may enjoy this little detour into food history.
Full disclosure: mom read the book every year and has also watched every version made (Alistair Sims too hokey; George C. Scott perfect). She even has a full Dickens village on display every December (complete with the turkey vendor
Nooooooooooo.
I think the Muppet version is the best, on account of Jacob Marley’s brother, Bob! Let’s get together and feel all right!
Everything’s better in Muppet world
Including Swine Lake with Nureyev and Miss Piggy.
Thanks for the correction and clarification!
I like the Mickey Mouse version.
I cannot speak to why others eat (usually Americanized) Chinese food on Christmas Eve, but I do it because it, along with Indian food, really works well for take out, because everyone loves it, because it seems festive to have containers of food strewn across the table, because it is often reasonably priced, because the run-up to Christmas has worn everyone out, and because it is open and Whataburger just does not do it.
I’m not ashamed to be in that group.
I like tasty…whatever the label. Or container. Or holiday.
And as I noted earlier, the red and green chutneys are so on point for Christmas.
Not everyone. Some of it is okay. Most of what I have had if I never had it again, no loss. At least the American (not native) Indian restaurant variety. The best Indian food I’ve ever had was at a friend’s wedding. Full Hindu ceremony. The food was nothing like I have ever had. Amazing stuff.
On the Jews eating Chinese, my experience based on having Jewish in laws and relations now is that it’s a function of what was open on Christmas Day. Movie theaters and Chinese restaurants. So many of my now Jewish relatives grew up going to see movies and eating Chinese food on Christmas Day as they wanted to get out when all those who were celebrating Christmas were home with their families.
On a complete tangent, I only just discovered that the root of the word Christmas comes from Christ Mass. Well duh!! After reading that it was so obvious.
As to Charles Dickens, anyone else watch the The Man Who Invented Christmas? That reminded me of another historical tidbit. Way back in what I think was the 1600s, the good Protestant citizens of the colony of New York gathered together one night and marched to the one Catholic Church that existed in NY with torches because they had heard the church was commemorating this suspicious thing called Christmas. A papist event.
Sorry for the imprecision. Americanized Chinese food is enjoyed or at least tolerated by a lot of us. While many people do not know it, they would love Indian food if they gave it a try.
I am with you on Americanized Chinese. Not so much on the Indian variant.