Festive Cups

It was the day after Winter Solstice so, henceforth, the days will be getting longer till summer. We've made it over the hill and hope has returned. Even though the coldest winter days are still ahead, our planet has come to a tilting stand-still and will now head in the opposite tilt direction.

Ever wondered why you can't place where the actual longest night is? Is it the night before or the night after? If so, which is the shortest day? The truth is, the whole process actually takes three days. The day before, with the shortest angular tilt, a day with no tilt at all, and another with an angular tilt equal to the one before the day. Observed from earth, the celestial bodies, especially the sun, appear to come to a halt, and rise from the same exact same spot on the horizon for three days in a row. Don't worry if this sounds like a jumble of words. It isn't important for the purposes of this post.

For the final Festive Cups post for this season, I decided to make it about the most popular coffee chain of them all - Starbucks. Since I don't have one in my area, I went quite a long way to get to one. This involved taking public transport and walking for an hour. This is why when I was served in a non-festive cup, I went ahead and grabbed one from the rack, just so I could create this post. Otherwise, what would be the point? LOL.

I don't know if they'd just run out, or don't do festive cup for large drinks. Venti Americanos, or Venti anything for that matter, was served in the normal Starbucks cups. Only the smaller sizes were served in festive cups. I wonder why that was. Did Starbucks just not make any of those this year? Has that always been a thing? I don't know.

The LCD display in the shop seemed to suggest they had the festive cups in large. Mind you those might just have been only the re-usable ones, that they have for sale, and that apparently change colour. Perhaps I should have bought one.

When it comes to season's greetings, Starbucks is firmly in the "Happy Holidays" camp. They had a chalk board with art depicting their festive drinks, including the "NEW Caramel Waffle Latte" which sounded incredibly calorie dense, in apparently large cups! The aforementioned permutation of the greeting was drawn in as large a font size as the board space would permit.

The cup design itself is the most generic so far. It's in the traditional green, red and white colours of Christmas. The festive season is represented by the long winding ribbon that's white on one side and lilac on the other. There are stars in the background twinkling at three different intensities. There is no one largest star that could represent the Christmas Star and no writing at all on the cup except the usual drinks tickboxes. There's the iconic Starbucks logo where it usually is, and a printed gift tag with "STARBUCKS" written on it. There is a vertical green band on which the name of the coffee chain is printed repeatedly in uppercase, in case you're in any doubt. I think the ribbon and tag allude to the coffee cup itself being a present, which would be a nod to one of the major traditions of Christmas, I guess.

Being one of the coldest days in London this winter so far, I was glad I had a Venti Americano to warm me up for at least half an hour during the long way back home. I did have my camera with me, and intended to take some photos on the way, but my fingers were quickly frozen. I made the usual error of not wearing gloves, so my hands remained in my pockets once the coffee was finished.

I couldn't be bothered to make lunch, so I decided to stop for a KFC on the way home. Something happened in there that made me laugh inside. I'll make a video about it tomorrow, fingers crossed, so stay tuned. In the mean time, have yourself a Merry Christmas filled with love, joy and lots of coffee.

Peace & Love,

Adé