The Day After: In which we posit that the fourth Friday in November may be the greatest day of the year

I think I may like the day after Thanksgiving even more than Thanksgiving Day. It’s opening day of eggnog season, for one thing, and you still have all of the family time and great food but you don’t have the pressure of making sure the turkey and the macaroni & cheese and the mashed potatoes are ready at the same time.

After a leisurely morning today, we said goodbye to my brother’s family and drove back home. On the way I told Rockford I was planning to put some leftover stuffing in the waffle maker.

“I love you,” he said. “But please don’t make any more puffles. That was really hard to clean.”

Why yes, he did clean up my hideous puffle mess the other day. He cleans up most of my messes. He is my Arthur.

“I’m not going to put the gravy in the waffle maker,” I told him. “Just the stuffing. It will be fine.”

I don’t think he was convinced.

But it was fine. It was even better than fine. My favorite part of stuffing is the crispy bit at the top, and the waffle maker made it about 90 percent crispy bit. I made turkey a la king to pour all over the stuffing waffle. I was too excited about it to take a picture. Which is probably fine, because it wasn’t pretty. But it was the best leftover stuffing I’ve had in recent memory.

But let’s talk some more about what I love about the Day After Thanksgiving. It’s also the day we start decorating for Christmas, and I love a holiday home.

As soon as we got home from my brother’s house, we unloaded the car and then went straight back out to get our Christmas tree. So far this evening we’ve only gotten as far as putting the lights on it and hauling the ornaments up from the basement, but by tomorrow morning it’ll be fully decorated.