We’re nearly halfway through November, and this means two things: Starbucks is my haven of happiness and I’m getting wicked excited for the season of carols and perfectly wrapped presents and seeing Zoë’s eyes the size of cake pedestals every time we pass a business as zany as I am with the Christmas spirit already.
Well, one more thing: I’m barely sleeping as another manic swing is starting.
Starbucks. How I love that place after November’s start. The red cups, the wishes of joy and hope, the seasonal offerings. Give me a peppermint brownie and I’ll consider licking you. Put some eggnog in my usual chai tea latte and I’ll swirl my tongue around your mouth a few times.
Or, you know, pay you $4.15. Either way.
My fondness for tall, reduced-fat eggnog chai lattés knows no bounds. They’re never bad. It’s always fanfuckingtastic in that Meg Ryan Sleepless in Seattle When Harry Met Sally way, except it’s totally not faked. But is just as loud. And prone to producing writhing. And staring. Because of the writhing, you know? Occasionally, there might be second degree burns, too. Again, because of the writhing.
So, when people ask me what’s so great about them because they’ve never tried one, like your grandmother with the forcing of the eating and the ‘you’re so skinny‘, I hand it over and demand they try it. As they take the first tentative taste, I say, “it tastes like Christmas” with a glee-filled smile.
They, of course, become an immediate convert – and assume that I’m smiling so much because I’m just so gosh darned excited about the holiday. But it goes but deeper than that. Gutter-deep.
Because when I say out loud “it tastes like Christmas,” I’m really thinking – inside my brains – “it tastes like Santa.”
And if that didn’t immediately make you mentally compare frothy eggnog to certain body fluids, I should jump right over the line by adding that I have a hunch Mrs. Clause swallows.
