In a poem about Christmas, one might well expect McGonagall to reiterate the moral that Christ's birth in a lowly manger should be celebrated with renewed commitments to charity, as, for instance, in the final stanza of his companion poem entitled "A Christmas Carol":

McGonagall leads us to expect a similar conclusion in "The Christmas Goose," but the "hero," a miser named Mr. Smiggs, is left with a moral that is almost satanic. After "the naughty boy" has been sentenced to ten days in jail for trying to steal Smiggs's goose, the "hero" concludes:

Smiggs's knowledge that others are starving and cold only enhances the taste of personal luxury and increases his gluttonous appetite. McGonagall does not appear to see any fault in Smiggs, whose name not only reminds us of Scrooge, but also combines the words that best describe him: "smug" and "pig." And although Smiggs's wife's name, Peggy, sounds a lot like "piggy", she is "a good kind soul." The two are introduced as the typical protagonists of a heart-warming Christmas tale:

While McGonagall repeatedly alludes to Peggy not frowning, it soon becomes apparent that her melancholy is indeed the source of much distress in the story, and Smiggs is up with the sunrise the next morning, apparently in a great hurry to alleviate her condition:

After Smiggs has been fortunate enough to purchase the "finest" goose in London for a mere crown, McGonagall adds some melodrama with the entrance of a villainous urchin:

But the crisis has not yet passed, for Smiggs is still in a hurry to relieve the distress of "his dear Peggy"--and to get a meal on the table:

Of course, it is only upon hearing news that the "fat" goose was purchased for a mere crown that Peggy courageously resolves to stop her frowning:

Lest Peggy should have a relapse, Smiggs reminds her yet again to take heart:

In place of the stanza where we are led to expect a last-minute change of heart and a "god bless everyone," we are presented with an image of greed and indifference in Smiggs' twisted moral. But, even more disturbing, there is a note of melodramatic perseverance, as though Smiggs and his wife ironically believed they were being oppressed by the poor:

Obviously there is a far more intelligent McGonagall orchestrating this poem than the one we have been accustomed to hearing about: a person who is capable of portraying himself to be naive in order to get more sophisticated meanings across to the reader. The poem casually releases details of injustices that would have perhaps been more poignant to an impoverished Dundee audience: The Smiggs are "cosy in bed;" Mr. Smiggs will comfort his wife with the "finest goose," a "fat" goose, which, interestingly enough, turns out to be "cheap" at the price of one crown. The key irony, of course, is that the "gentleman," and his wife act as though they are oppressed by poverty: they are the ones worried about "dull care" and saving money. To an audience in McGonagall's Dundee that often enough had difficulty affording such luxuries as a "a blanket to their bed" or a fat goose, let alone a goose that cost a crown, the melodrama surrounding Peggy's frown is merely the most antagonistic reminder of all of the things that are absent from Christmas. The audience's sense of unfairness is further heightened by the fact that the narrator sympathizes with the Smiggs' rather than the boy. McGonagall reminds us four times in as many stanzas that the boy is "naughty" and, significantly, leaves out any explanation as to why the boy stole the goose. If it were not for the fact that Smiggs alludes the starving poor in the last stanza, we would be left with a crime motivated simply by evil. The Smiggs' brutality is something McGonagall pretends to be too stupid to see, precisely in order to heighten his audience's sense of injustice. Did he get the message across? It is interesting to note that following a performance of "The Christmas Goose," members of the audience shouted "read it upside down" and "missed a verse," and the reporter summed the poem up as "a real Christmas Carol."