There should really be a word in the English language for that exact moment on Thanksgiving when you realize with both pride and mild horror that you’ve taken one bite too many. You know the moment. We all do. That moment when the fork pauses mid-air. A button on your pants whispers its last goodbye. And your stomach, suddenly sentient, begins loudly negotiating the terms of your survival.

What is one supposed to do after the meal is done and the turkey has claimed its sleepy victims?

I’ve thought about this deeply. Probably too deeply. But that’s what happens when you’re catatonic on a couch, staring at the ceiling like it might give you life advice.

First, there’s the Couch Surrender. The moment you lie down, half-human, half-stuffed pumpkin, and accept that gravity has won. You are not getting up without assistance or a compelling reason, like someone yelling “There’s pie left!”

Then comes the Cheesy Movie Spiral. You turn on the TV, and somehow you land on a movie featuring an actor you vaguely recognize from a yogurt commercial and a plot built entirely around miscommunication and cinnamon. But do you change the channel? No. You are both too full and too emotionally vulnerable to disrupt the delicate equilibrium you’ve established among yourself, the couch, and your digestive system. So you stay. You watch. You commit.

Next is the Thirst Revelation, caused by the amount of savory food you consumed. Suddenly you need water like you’ve crossed a desert. “I’ll just get up and nope.” The couch has claimed you. You consider yelling for help. Instead you sip carefully from a water bottle nearby like a wilted houseplant getting a second chance.

Of course, there’s always the option to hug the dogs. They don’t judge. They don’t question why you ate four different types of carbs in less than 20 minutes. They just climb onto your torso, settling onto your overly full stomach like weighted therapy muffins. It hurts, but it heals.

And then, in that hazy drifting space between fullness and sleepiness, something wild happens. Your brain decides this is the perfect time to plan the rest of your year.

End-of-year reflections, holiday logistics, the suspiciously long to-do list you swore you’d start in September. It all floods in. Because nothing says “productivity” like lying immobile after consuming the caloric equivalent of a small village.

But maybe this is the magic of the post-Thanksgiving lull. It’s a forced pause. A natural reset button.
A reminder that fullness is more than food. It’s memory, connection, chaos, comfort, and the quiet sigh after it all.

So what is one to do after Thanksgiving dinner?

Whatever keeps you human.
Whatever keeps you grateful.
Whatever keeps you from actually bursting.

Personally, I’ll be on the couch, sipping water, hugging dogs, watching a movie that should’ve stayed in the writer’s Google Docs, and planning my way into one final reinvention before the year ends.

Because fullness in life and in stomach deserves a moment of appreciation.

Even if you’re horizontal for it.