The pieces for a Christmas morning breakfast.

Lodge has made cast iron in South Pittsburg, Tennessee, since 1896, and this is its double-burner reversible plate. One side is a flat griddle for pancakes, French toast and eggs; the other is ridged for bacon, sausages or a steak another night. At 16.75 by 9.5 inches it spans two burners, which is what turns a one-pan breakfast into a production line.

It comes pre-seasoned, is PFAS-free, and works on gas, electric, induction, in the oven or over a campfire. Cast iron takes a while to heat evenly across two burners, so give it ten minutes on medium before the first pancake. Once hot, it holds its heat through batch after batch.

It is heavy, and the flat side has no rim, so butter and batter can run off the edge if the stove is not level. Skip it if your burners are far apart or oddly sized; check the spacing before you buy.

A single waffle maker feeding a family of ten is a morning spent at the counter. Cuisinart's Double Flip bakes two 1 inch thick Belgian waffles at once, one on each side of a rotating housing: pour, close, flip, and pour the second while the first bakes. Turning the housing spreads the batter across the plates before it sets.

It has a five-setting browning dial and two indicator lights, one for when the plates are hot enough to pour and one for when the waffle is done. The plates are a PFAS-free ceramic nonstick. Those lights matter more than they sound: on a busy morning, the machine tells the cook when to come back.

It takes counter space and cupboard space, and it does one thing. Skip it if waffles are a once-a-year dish in your house; the griddle makes pancakes for a crowd and costs a quarter as much.

A glass French press makes good coffee and loses its heat in twenty minutes, which is before anyone has finished opening stockings. Bodum's Columbia is the same press in double-walled stainless steel, so it brews and then serves, standing on the table like a coffee pot.

It holds 51 ounces. Bodum counts that as twelve 4 ounce cups; in real mugs, that is five or six. The plunger has a three-part stainless mesh filter, and the whole press goes in the dishwasher. Bodum's safety lid keeps it from sloshing when it is carried.

For a houseful of coffee drinkers, brew a second press ten minutes after the first rather than buying a bigger machine. Skip it if your household drinks drip coffee from a timer and likes it that way.

Juice poured into a water tumbler goes half drunk and warm. A 5.5 ounce glass is the old breakfast size for a reason: a proper pour of orange juice, finished before it matters, and small enough to sit beside a coffee cup and a plate without crowding.

These are plain clear glass, 3.5 inches tall, with a weighted base that keeps them upright when a child's elbow goes by. They are lead-free and dishwasher safe. Eight is the right count for a holiday table, and they go back to ordinary weekday use afterward.

They are plain, which is the point. Anyone who wants cut or colored glass on the Christmas table should look elsewhere, and will pay three or four times as much.

On Christmas morning, a board does more than a platter. The coffee cake is sliced on it, the bacon is laid across one end, the fruit is cut at the other, and the whole thing goes to the table at once. Le Creuset's 16 inch acacia board is thick enough to work on and handsome enough to serve from.

The wood is FSC certified acacia, and Le Creuset notes that grain and color vary from board to board. It is sold as a heavy-duty cutting and carving board, which means it will also take the ham at dinner.

Wood needs a little care. Le Creuset says to keep it out of the dishwasher, avoid long soaking and bleach, and wipe it now and then with vegetable oil. Anyone who wants to throw serveware in the dishwasher should use a ceramic platter instead.

All-Clad's square waffle maker bakes four deep-pocket waffles at a time, which feeds a table of eight in two rounds. It has six browning levels and audible alerts, one to say the plates are ready for batter and one to say the waffles are done.

The feature that justifies the price is the plates. They are nonstick, they lift out, and they go in the dishwasher. Anyone who has picked cooked batter out of fixed waffle plates on December 26 knows what that is worth. The machine stores upright, which saves cupboard depth.

It is a lot of money for a waffle maker, and a lot of machine for a small household. Buy it if waffles are a weekend habit, not a Christmas tradition.