A few years back, there was an S-R editor who passed out commemorative mugs on the day after Thanksgiving. He did this several years in a row.

Printed on the outside of these mugs were brief references to big stories the paper had covered in the previous year.

Fine, right?

Well, there was one problem. Because a lot of what the paper covers could be characterized as bad news, many of these big-story labels were not what many would consider festive.

So when you studied the outside of your holidays mug and saw references to child abuse or whatever, it didn't exactly put you in the mood for hot chocolate and marshmallows.

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