There will be ham on offer at his festive table, but he admits he has "almost seen enough hams by the time Christmas comes along".
Mr Eskrick could not estimate how many hams he had cured and cooked over the years, but as he prepared a couple a week during the year and dozens for Christmas, it would run into thousands.
Now 64, he went to work with his father, Fred, in his George St business when he was 15.
"When I was 14, my father said to me `I suppose you are going to start in the shop when you are 15' - and I just did".
His father opened the George St shop in 1949 and at one stage also had butcher's shops in Queens Dr and on the site of the current shop in North Rd, in the Gardens shopping area.
Mr Eskrick said he had worked in the North Rd shop for all but the first few years of his career, after his father bought the then-Bennett and Houston's butchery in 1947.
"It's been a butcher's shop since the 1880s."
Yesterday he was preparing to boil legs of pork and mutton - part of the process of turning them into hams.
After boiling for two to three hours, they are placed in pickle for a couple of nights, hung, smoked and then cooked, with the whole process taking about a week.
Mr Eskrick said ham remained popular at Christmas, although there could be fashions for other types of meat, driven by television cookery programmes or recipes published in newspapers and magazines.
He had been surprised, considering the recession, at the number of hams he sold this year for other festive occasions.
Mr Eskrick - who runs the business with wife Elaine, whom he described as the " brains behind the business" - said the shop was the last butcher's shop in the north end of the city.
In his early days, there had been two others further along North Rd, one in Opoho, two in Pine Hill, one across the road and another on the corner now occupied by the Crusty Corner bakery and cafe.
While he enjoyed the contact and banter with his customers - about 90% of whom he knew by name - it was a physically demanding occupation and he wondered how long he would continue.
"This is the 49th year. I don't know if there is going to be a 50th".
