date footer?

ok, i’m making the move from movabletype 3 to wordpress. in movabletype, however, i had date header and date footer tags. i figured out that the_date(); will display only once per day — that’s great, i can use the ‘before’ and ‘after’ parameters to do the date header — but is there any way to have a date footer?

here’s what my xhtml looks like:
————————-
<div class="day">
<h4 class="date_header">2006.02.02</h4>
<ul class="entry_ul">
<li class="entry_li">
<<entry-1-text>>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<<permalink-for-comments>>
</li>
<li class="entry_li">
<<entry-2-text>>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<<permalink-for-comments>>
</li>
<li class="entry_li">
<<entry-3-text>>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<<permalink-for-comments>>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
————————-

i’ve discovered that i can do this for the date header:
————————-
<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<?php the_date('', '
<div class="day">
<h4 class="date_header">', '</h4>
<ul class="entry_ul">'); ?>
<li class="entry_li">
<<entry-1-text>>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<<permalink-for-comments>>
</li>
<li class="entry_li">
<<entry-2-text>>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<<permalink-for-comments>>
</li>
<li class="entry_li">
<<entry-3-text>>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<<permalink-for-comments>>
</li>

<!-- however i have no idea what i can use to close these "date footer" tags with -->
</ul>
</div>
————————-

any ideas?