Yellow and Orange Snow Globe, Glitter Water Dome, Desk Shake Decor, Cheerful Birthday Gift Idea

Rhonda works on the fourth floor of a building with no windows, in a city where January lasts until May. Her desk faces a gray wall, a gray file cabinet and a gray coworker named Stuart. By her third winter she had developed a theory: if she could just get sunlight, any sunlight, she would survive the quarter. Then she found this snow globe, a small dome filled with golden sunflowers, white daisies and green leaves, glowing yellow at the top and sunset orange at the bottom, with glitter ready to fly.

She set it on the desk next to the stapler and shook it once. The glitter swirled up around the flowers like a very small summer storm. For ten seconds the gray wall disappeared. Stuart looked over. "Is that a sunflower?" he asked, in the voice of a man whose soul has been kept in a drawer. Rhonda said it was. Stuart asked if he could shake it. She said that would cost him a coffee. By Wednesday six people had visited, each one shaking the dome and sighing. By Friday the break room had a sign-up sheet.

Rhonda now rations the sunshine: one shake per employee, three if you are having a bad meeting. Her manager calls it a morale initiative. Rhonda calls it a snow globe that forgot what season it is, which is the best kind. It sits on her desk, a cheerful little dome of yellow and orange, and it has outlasted two reorganizations and a printer jam. If you work somewhere gray, buy one. If you work somewhere sunny, buy one anyway. Sunshine should never be a seasonal service.

Anywhere that needs a little weather correction. A desk is the classic: it stands up to a keyboard, a coffee mug and a mild existential crisis. A windowsill lets the light go through the dome and turns the orange glow into stained glass. On a kitchen shelf it brightens the spot above the sink, where nobody expects joy. Beside a bed it gives you something warm to look at before the alarm. Flip it over, watch the glitter swirl, and let it settle for a few seconds. That settling is half the point. The other half is that the yellow still looks cheerful at three o'clock on a Tuesday.

Hand it to a coworker the day after a brutal deadline. Send it to the friend who moved somewhere cloudy for a job and now texts you photos of rain. Give it to a kid who is homesick for summer, an uncle who says he hates presents, or a teacher who needs something on the desk besides sticky notes. The only rule is to tell the recipient that shaking it in meetings is allowed. It will happen, whether you say so or not.

• Size: 3.5" x 3.4"
• Durable polystyrene globe, lighter and more break-resistant than glass
• Two-sided acrylic insert shows the same design from either side
• Acrylic glitter and PET snow for a classic swirling effect
• Filled with purified water
• Care: wipe dust off gently with a soft, dry cloth
• AKA: yellow and orange snow globe, glitter water dome, desk shake decor, cheerful birthday gift idea