gooden
To perambulate, usually town to town, collecting alms, gifts, or small gratuities before Christmas-time, usually on St. Thomas's Day.
intransitive
Phoebe, in support of a good old Sussex custom, regularly, on St. Thomas's Day, December 21st, went out "Goodening," visiting well-to-do parishioners, to gossip upon the past, over hot elderberry wine and plum cake, and to receive doles, either in money or materials, [...]
Where it comes from
Back-formation from goodening, an alteration of gooding (“to receive goods or goodies”), believed to be derived from goody or perhaps a survival of Middle English goden, godien (“to make good, become good, endow with goods”), from Old English gōdian (“to improve, get better; make better; endow, enrich”). Alternative etymology derives this term from earlier hoodening, hodening perhaps a corruption of Woden (“Odin”).
Adapted from the Wiktionary entry gooden (CC BY-SA 4.0).