It is the morning after Thanksgiving, which means I have just made a bathtub-sized batch of raisin bran muffin batter to use up the almost-quart of buttermilk left over from the mashed potatoes. If I know anything about early New Englanders, it’s that they used all the stuff. (I also know that Pilgrims first landed in Provincetown, not Plymouth, and that they fasted on their Thanksgiving, but whatever).

Even though it’s happened for ages, I didn’t realize that bran muffins were our day after Thanksgiving tradition until this year – the year I’m actively re-branding Black Friday. Because who’s the genius who decided it was a good idea to pair a day of gratitude with a day of buying as much sub-quality stuff as will fit in your car?

It started a few weeks ago when my son asked when Thanksgiving was. I told him I was pretty sure it was on a Thursday this year, to which he responded, “oh right, because Black Friday.”

He regretted it instantly because of course a lecture followed. We dedicate a day to being grateful – for our families, our homes, our freedoms, our health, our Sea Monkeys, our whatever. And then we get up the next morning, spontaneously unsatisfied with what we have.

I do get it. If you need something and you are on a tight budget, you buy it when it’s cheapest – like buying vegetables in season, or your own personal stash of peanut butter Cadbury eggs the day after Easter. The thing is, my tight budget doesn’t like other people telling me what I need, and what stuff will make my life happier. You don’t know me, marketing people. No matter how many ads for those boots I want you stick in my sidebar.

So this year I’m starting a new tradition. I’m going room to room, noting all the things I’m still happy I bought, inherited, made, or was given. Quirky things, like the tomato knife I grew up with, and big things, like the couch we saved up for and picked out on our way home from a wedding.

I found out I have a ton of great stuff. Would you think it was great? Maybe not. Not everyone is going to love my tomato knife, the chicken figurines in the kitchen window, or the dinner chime that’s useless but really pretty cool. I’m okay with that.

Thanksgiving has taught me a thing or two about the stuff we own.
1. We inevitably use our tablecloth in a craft project, and then forget that we now have no tablecloth. Ergo, Emergency Tablecloth Run Wednesday. In the rock/paper/scissors of life, craft projects crush homegoods.
2. While we’re at it, we buy new cloth napkins because Jeremy Irons made us stop using paper napkins and by the time Thanksgiving rolls around again we have nothing that matches.
3. Ditto glasses. Maybe this is why people have glasses and plates that only come out on special occasions. I get that now. But I’m also okay with replacing things at certain times of year – like changing smoke detector batteries with the time change. This is why we get toothbrushes and tape in our Christmas stockings. (If you don’t get tape in your Christmas stocking, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to rub it in.)

I really did go room to room, noting things I was grateful to have, and now I can’t stop. I’m wrapped in a mohair blanket my mom used to keep in the back of her car when she lived in the mountains, just in case. My pencil cup was given to me right out of a family’s kitchen cupboard in Bavaria. My stapler – the only one that hasn’t broken – was rescued from my dad’s office.

I like things that are useful, beautiful, do their job, and don’t break. Things that were given or made by someone I love. Things whose history makes me smile.

Please make a note of it, marketing people.

My Mom’s Raisin Bran Muffins
adapted from the Christian Science Monitor

15 oz raisin bran cereal
2 cups sugar
5 cups flour
5 tsp baking soda
a couple grinds of salt
4 eggs
1 qt. buttermilk
1 cup melted butter, cooled
Mix the dry ingredients in the biggest bowl you have (I use my soup pot).
Whisk the liquids in a smaller bowl and then thoroughly combine with dry ingredients.
Store batter in a tight container for up to six weeks.

To bake: Preheat oven to 400º. Fill cups of a muffin tin ¾ of the way full. Bake for 15 minutes.

When I make it ¾ c. of the buttermilk is actually whole milk because I used it in the mashed potatoes. Also, you have to estimate 15oz of cereal because my recipe is probably from the ’70s and there are no 15oz boxes.

I’ve lost count of how many dozens of muffins it makes, but it’s a lot. I will try to pay attention and update when we have a new total.