Once in a marshy, woodsy place, there were four little houses: a red house, a yellow house, a green house and a blue house.

In the red house lived a chicken.

In the yellow house lived a duck.

In the green house lived a turkey and

In the blue house lived a goose.

One crisp, crackly fall morning, the goose woke up with great alarm in his little goosey heart, pulled on his hat and scarf and banged on the door of each of his friends’ houses.

“Wake up! Wake up! Don’t you know what today is?” shouted the goose, jumping from foot to foot.

The chicken, the duck and the turkey tumbled out of bed and practically fell out of their front doors.

“Heavens, Goose, it’s six a.m.,” said the chicken. “Don’t you have a gigantic egg to lay or something?”

“It’s the fourth Thursday in November!” said the goose, twisting his scarf. “It’s Thanksgiving!”

“What does that have to do with us?” said the duck. “That’s a human holiday.”

“Don’t you know what they eat on Thanksgiving?” said the goose.

“I can’t even imagine,” said the turkey.

“Turkey,” said the goose. “Big, juicy, getting-plump-on-the-marsh-bugs, free-range turkey.”

Silence.

The goose spoke suddenly.

“You know that to the humans, we poultry all look alike. To them we all taste like chi—uh, which is why I’m leaving now before Farmer John shows up with that shotgun. It’s every bird for himself!” And he waddled away as fast as he could, lifted off, and flew over the lake.

“I have a plan,” said the duck. He climbed on the turkey’s back. “Chicken, get up here,” he called. The chicken flew awkwardly up onto the duck’s shoulders.

“Duck,” said the chicken, “What exactly am I doing up here?”

“We’re going to make Farmer John think we’re a much bigger bird—one he can’t fit in his oven! Get it?”

“Ye—no, no. Ooh, I want that grub! Pleaselemmegetthegrub!”

The duck hung his head for a moment and continued.

“Turkey, fluff those great ridiculous feathers as big as you possibly can. Oh, yeah. That’s over the top. Chicken, flap your wings like you actually might fly someday. That’s it! Hey, check out our shadow!” Their shadow looked like an ominous, six-winged poultry deity.

“Now when we see Farmer John, everyone go berserk!” said the duck. “No one will want to come anywhere near us!”

Well, Farmer John did, indeed, come into the marsh with his shotgun. But he wasn’t thinking of the capacity of his oven. He was thinking of stuffing and giblet gravy. And as soon as he saw that wild, flapping mess of poultry come around the lake side, he let it rip.

And that is how the tradition of the Turducken came to be.

Epilogue

Four weeks later, the goose flew back to his little blue house.

“Ah, I have lived as an exile too long,” he sighed. “And now to settle down for my winter rest.”

And that is how Farmer John put the Christmas goose on the table that year.