Fun Friday–Eight Random Things I Love About the Day After Thanksgiving

I hope all of my American readers had a wonderful, family- and blessing-filled Thanksgiving Day yesterday. Here at my parents’ home in Arkansas, my mom, sister, and I spent most of the morning in/near the kitchen. Thanksgiving dinner consisted of smoked ham, baked sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, cornbread dressing, homemade bread (my contribution, in addition to buying the ham), cranberry sauce, and mashed potatoes and gravy, followed by our traditional lemon meringue pie. I personally ate a little too much, but I tried to make up for it by taking a long walk that evening.

This morning, my brother-in-law and oldest nephew got up at four o’clock and went shopping—and were back in time for breakfast—which is totally beyond my comprehension. So it made me start thinking about what it is that I do like about the Friday after Thanksgiving, which, of course, necessitates an “Eight Random Things” list.

1. The LSU vs. Arkansas “Battle of the Boot” Football game. This is a tradition dating back longer than I can remember, which was discontinued in the ’70s or ’80s and was revived when Arkansas joined the Southeastern Conference in the early 1990s. There’s a trophy in the shape of the states of Arkansas and Louisiana (thus the “boot” reference) and the Friday after Thanksgiving is the traditional day for the game. This is a special game for our family, since my dad’s from Arkansas and my mom’s from Louisiana—and my sister and I both attended LSU. It has also become a special day for us because we don’t usually get to spend much time with my dad’s only remaining family, his younger brother and his family, so we try to get together with them to watch the game.

2. Leftovers. There’s just something about the food we create and eat on Thanksgiving Day that just tastes better the next day.

3. Putting up the Christmas decorations. Before my parents moved to Arkansas and my family was once again able to start getting together for Thanksgiving (before last year, it had been since I was a senior in high school that my immediate family had Thanksgiving all together), I spent Thanksgiving in Nashville, usually by myself—because before 2006, I worked the day before and the day after every year. But I always made the effort to put my Christmas decorations up on the day after Thanksgiving (usually while the LSU-Arkansas game was on)! This year, since we’ll be having our first Christmas here in Arkansas, my parents brought their tree and decorations from Dallas so that we can put it up and decorate it while the little kids are here to help. Because I don’t like the fact that Christmas has completely infringed upon Thanksgiving, for me, the Christmas season doesn’t actually start until today (even though all of my Christmas shopping/wrapping is finished).

4. Being lazy all day. This is one of the few days of the year where laziness is not only accepted, it’s expected!

5. Putting together gingerbread houses with the niece and nephews. This is a tradition my mom started with the kids a couple of years ago (at Christmas time) that has now transferred to Thanksgiving. It’s fun to watch them make a mess with the candy and icing that come in the kits (yes, we’re kit people, not make it from scratch people).

6. Watching a Christmas movie. Just like with putting the decorations up on this day, it’s been my tradition to make myself wait until the day after Christmas to break out the few Christmas movies that I enjoy—especially A Christmas Story.

7. Playing games with my niece and nephews. We sat up late last night playing come find-and-search games on the computer, and we’re definitely looking forward to finishing those today.

8. No more Thanksgiving-themed e-mail forwards. It seems like every year not only do I receive all of the same forwards that I’ve gotten every year before, somehow people find even more to forward. And just to show I’m really a good sport about it, my favorite Thanksgiving-themed is this one about how our Thanksgiving isn’t going to be anything like Martha Stewart’s, which I posted last year.