This morning started out pretty grey. Grumbling my way to work I decided to stop at the local 'Buckys' to grab a latte. I walked in the door and like magic, voila, my day was immediately improved. During the night the little Bucky Xmas Gnomes had been busy with all the Xmas marketing. Adorable stuffed toy penguins were there in little red coats; teddy bears with little scarves; blue shiny snowflakes around the colorful displays; shiny xmas mugs; advent calendars: You name it, it was there - and it was cute. I am a sucker for cute.

I managed to get by the adorable 'stuff-I-want-but-do-not-need', and there in front of me in big stacks by size, were red cups. I even exclaimed out loud as I saw them. "The red cups are back. Oh good! That's so great" and the baristas mentioned that yes they were nice and bright looking, probably thinking "good lord who is this dork". But nice and bright is not it. The fact is that every year at this time, the cups at Starbucks go from white with the green logo on, to some kind of red design, and every year it makes me happy. It nothing to do with coffee. The coffee was still the slightly too sweet but warm and fuzzy-feeling-making, with a faint taste of coffee, but the environment was delightful.

And the cups are RED!