Animals and Christmas go together. Sheep around the manger, turkey or Hutterite goose for dinner. My message builds upon holiday trips to my grandfather Baden's farm and the comments of a friend, Bob Cindrich, a federal judge in Pittsburgh. They would agree on many important things including treatment of animals.

My family's heritage in America dates from the European turmoil of 1847-48. They left Germany for our Midwest. They bought farms graced with ample moisture and rich soil. Their culture included relationships with, and responsibility for, their animals.

My grandparents respected creatures on whom their sustenance depended. I respect this worldview and believe this antique orientation is reviving among the morally sensitive and aware. Here's an example of how these values were practiced.

Like most Midwestern farmers, my grandparents raised many animals -- cows, chickens, horses, pigs, and sheep. They held dominion over them and used them well. The animals had space to fulfill their instincts. Each morning chickens were let out of the henhouse to scratch out bugs and seeds. Beef, dairy cattle, and sheep roamed in pastures. And they not only fed them, they cared for them. Some they ate. All were butchered and processed on the farm.

Christmas day the animals, like the people, were given special meals, feed they relished. My grandmother warmed the chickens' mash and included cornbread in their rations. Cows, horses, and sheep also got treats, plenty of fine-stemmed third-cutting hay.

My grandparents respected the animals' nature and recognized it in their celebrations. Two generations ago this was common. Many Americans were sufficiently close to animals to feel connections. Today, aside from pets, we've lost the nearness and interdependence that fosters concern for animals' well-being.

I believe my grandparents' feelings are ones we should hold toward those creatures we eat. We do in fact hold dominion over them and with this comes an ethical responsibility that we can too easily ignore. And this brings us to factory farms, surely one of our greatest ethical and ecological blights.

Factory farms exemplify the pathologies inherent to the working of the market process when unconstrained by moral balance. There is an innate tension in maximizing economic efficiency when dealing with living things. The imperatives of efficiency means that animals on factory farms cannot exercise, stretch, groom themselves, or, in the cases of sows and veal, even turn around. They suffer relentless frustrations of instincts. Simple MBA economics erodes our moral underpinnings.

I admire the technological sophistication of confined animal feeding operations. However, they are designed with Cartesian principles, i.e., animals are treated as machines, not sensate beings. Supporting this system implies weak or brutish character or willful ignorance.

When our meat is raised under such circumstances, we implicitly consent to practices that guarantee creatures a lifetime of suffering. This is wrong. And among the well off and well informed of the world, it will change. A time series of Google searches on "animal welfare" will demonstrate this moral evolution. (Try it every few months.)

For reasons far beyond the scope of this column, I find vegetarianism a simplistic response to the ethical and ecological problems of factory farms. For domesticated animals, any "good life" requires humans. They evolved with us, exemplifying mutualism among species. Here are two alternatives to a vegan subsistence.

Judge Cindrich is a strong advocate of highly ethical hunting. He also argues that at least once a year, all meat eaters should kill an animal they eat. They would understand steaks, salmon, and sausage aren't built by Safeway. My friend believes people should confront the fact their meals come from living creatures and should experience the meaning of their death.

Fortunately, market niches evolve. They emerge as our ethics incorporate animal welfare. We find examples near and far. Polyface Farm in Virginia and www.eatwild.com feature animals that lived on grass rather than in feedlots, cages, or on concrete. We buy our grass-fed lambs and beef from neighboring ranchers, Gretchen and Craig White.

Here's a suggestion for your New Year's resolution. Register your opposition to meat from confined operations. The market works. Use it to express your values. It will respond. Higher values trickle down, I hope to next year's Christmas dinner.