Let's get into the wayback machine and turn the dial nearly a century. Just 99 years ago, Brooks Unusual Restaurant on Main Street was offering a very special Christmas dinner for just $2, with seatings from noon to 8 p.m. (By the way, two bucks back then had the purchasing power of $36 these days -- which seems about right for the cost of a holiday meal).

But first -- what made Brooks Restaurant "Unusual"? Well, this was a restaurant in a pharmacy -- you know, the kind of place where you found Bromo-Seltzer and a truss for Auntie Estelle. But owner Harry M. Brooks was a man of great vision, and earlier in the summer had staged a "formal dedication of remodelled Brooks establishment" with more than 100 Rotarians and friends as guests.

"No expense has been spared to make the restaurant one of the best in the state," an un-bylined piece in the Fitchburg Sentinel declared in July, 1925. "The draperies were imported from France. The costumes of the waitresses are black sateen trimmed with Italian brocade to harmonize with the draperies, the light gray of the walls and the tings of the paintings."

A Boston man, Jack Kein, formerly of the Brunswick Shopped Boston is manager of both the soda fountain and the new tea room. Waitresses were hired from Schrafts, legendary tea house of Boston. Luncheon will be served from 11:30 a.m. until 2 p.m., and then the room "becomes an English tea room and remains so until 5:30 p.m." Dinner will be served until 7:30 p.m., "when the room will be reserved for private parties. Music provided by Mills six-piece automatic orchestra."

What researchers might deduce from the following menu is that a) Fitchburg had a fair share of unmarried working men who lived in lodging (boarding houses) which were not featuring much of a Christmas dinner and/or b) Fitchburg had a fair share of middle-class families or individuals enticed by food both fancy and plain.

By 1925, there were substantial numbers of new arrivals in the city, including Finns, Italians, and those from Eastern Europe, the Far and Near East. However, Brooks Unusual Restaurant was producing a dining experience that would be most familiar to those of Yankee, British, or straight-up English extraction.

If you were to attend, your meal would begin with a grape fruit (two words!) cocktail. Chances are excellent that your grapefruit was grown in Texas or Florida (where growers began producing the fruit in commercial quantities starting in the 'teens and 1920s).

This is followed by a soup course. Take your pick of consomme or cream of celery, with "Saltines, Celery, Radishes, and Olives" on the side. These days, any soup you order in most parts of New England comes with a packet of Westminster Crackers (which were first made in 1828, in Westminster, but have been baked in Rutland, Vt., since 1988). But I've yet to see Westminster Crackers advertised in a menu.

And lest you think the addition of "celery" is peculiar -- as this crunchy veggie has become commonplace -- a century ago, celery was an exotic, and often served in tony dining establishments.

Cooks of the day recommended that the hearts of celery be served in a crystal parfait glass with ice on the bottom, and some of the leaves remaining, so this side dish was also a decoration. (The outer stalks were saved for soup.)

Now we come to the main meal: lobster in pattie shell. Oh wait, that's another appetizer! Lobster was definitely considered "fancy food," but did this lobster come from Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, which had more robust fisheries than the state o' Maine did in 1925? Unless Fitchburg Historical Society has a cache of receipts from Brooks' in an unopened box, we may never know.

I'd like to think that there was a sideboard -- not unlike those seen on cruise ships or deluxe buffets -- where diners could view the "Roast Stuffed Goose" or "Young Turkey" (served with currant jelly and cranberry sauce, respectively).

Would you be brave enough to order the goose? Nearly a century ago, goose was connected to European culture, and to this day, people in Germany consider roast goose necessary for a true Christmas feast.

Now and a century ago, roast turkey is the go-to fowl for Christmas day. Actually, you can go back to the era of Charles Dickens. Remember how he used a turkey as one of the signifiers of Ebenezer Scrooge's redemption?

Scrooge wakes up in his "dismal chambers," after all that Ghostly activity, and realizes that morning has come. Then he calls out his window to ask a passing lad what day it is. When he hears it's Christmas, he bids the "delightful lad" to make the purchase, and decides to send the bird to the Cratchit family.

With the turkey, Brooks waiters (we can imagine them in black waistcoats and long white aprons) brought side dishes of Candied Sweet Potatoes, White Potatoes, Cauliflower au Gratin and Boiled Onions.

But on its own line followed the salad: "Hearts of Lettuce; Roquefort Dressing." We can only assume this is the thoroughly American "Iceberg Lettuce" which has been a mainstay in steakhouses (with, yes, Roquefort dressing) since the Gilded Age.

By the late 1920s, lettuce production in California's Central Valley had expanded enormously, and the food industry was searching for additional ways to serve lettuce. Thus, cottage cheese with tangerines on a lettuce leaf became a classic American dish, along with grapefruit slices and celery on a lettuce leaf.

Sweetness reigns in the variety of desserts served which include apple, mince or pumpkin pie, christmas pudding, hard and cream sauce, fancy ices, cakes, popcorn, fudge, fruit, cheese and crackers, coffee. .

Christmas pudding is, of course, the traditional British collation. "Hard" sauce is butter and cream mixed with alcohol and other flavorings; cream sauce is non-alcoholic. The traditional sauce for Christmas pudding is made of brandy, which is set alight to warm the dessert.

Apart from the reference to "consumme" and "cauliflower au gratin," Brooks Unusual Restaurant is refreshingly free of Francophilia which was sweeping the rest of the nation. And -- goose aside -- I imagine that your Christmas Day dinner has some items that would be familiar to a diner at Brooks Unusual Restaurant!

Fanny Farmer, back in the 1940s, suggested one could make a "Roquefort" style dressing by adding "a few" drops of onion juice with one to four tablespoons of dry Roquefort cheese to ½ cup French dressing. Other variants suggest adding ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce and as much mayonnaise as Roquefort crumbs.

This cheese dates back to Roman times, and probably millenia earlier, as the limestone caves around Mount Combalou near the village of Roquefort, France have been home to humans since the Neolithic. If you want real Roquefort cheese, look for the sheep on the label.