Admit it: you're fun-deprived at the moment. If you're like most people, you're a little exhausted from dealing with the ups and downs of the last year.

For that reason, many housewares designers and retailers say they're seeing an upsurge of interest in colorful, whimsical housewares items this holiday season

Grim functionality is out, a relic of the high-tech years when housewares designers assumed that consumers wanted their kitchens to look like scientific laboratories. (It went with the whole "I'm too busy with my fabulous career to spend time in the kitchen" ethos of the period.)

Instead, how about a salt and pepper set in the form of two ceramic monkeys sitting in a boat shaped like a banana?

"People want colorful, playful things right now," says Paolo Crevedi, North American director of Alessi, the well-known Italian housewares firm and designer of the above-mentioned salt and pepper set. "They want to be cheered up."

Indeed they do. And designers are responding with an outpouring of new products, many in eye-popping colors not seen in many years.

"In a year where there was a lot of not-great news, color and whimsy serve as little pick-me-ups," says Carrie Peterson, Zak Designs. "They make the kitchen a happier place."

"We believe in products that make people smile," Crevedi says. "They create optimism and a sense of connection, which we all need right now."

Alessi, for example, works with about 200 artists around the world on products that range from basic and utilitarian to far more fanciful items.

An example of the latter impulse is the company's new "Chin Family" line of kitchen items, which are inspired by antiquities in the National Palace Museum in Taiwan as interpreted by artist Stefano Giovannoni. The line includes salt and pepper shakers, a spice grinder, refrigerator magnets, a kitchen timer and a citrus squeezer, all executed in brightly colored plastic and incorporating smiling Asian figurines.

Several different color trends are operating in housewares at the moment. One is the overall importance of red. "Housewares used to cycle in and out of red every five years or so but today red is a basic almost like black and white," Peterson says.

Green is also coming on strong, aided by everything from the current interest in eco-friendly "green" design to Hollywood movies. In the past year, for example, the film "Julie & Julia," which recounted the early days of beloved author and chef Julia Child, ignited a trend for the Emile Henry line of vintage green baking dishes.

Finally, two colors that have been popular in Europe in recent years - yellow and orange - are starting to make their way into the American market.

"There's a big push for yellow right now," Peterson says. "Yellow has traditionally been more of an accent color than a primary color. But it's very cheerful, so maybe the time is right for yellow."

Zak Design manufactures a wide variety of kitchen and tabletop items, which it divides into various collections according to color. The Pop collection, for example, features numerous mixing bowls, colanders, measuring cups, spoons and trays in vibrant colors such as red, orange, yellow and magenta.

The recent interest in color and whimsy recalls another period of economic turbulence, namely the 1930s and 40s when colorful, affordable dinnerware lines like Fiestaware and Franciscanware first came on the market.

"Traditionally, dinnerware was a stack of identical plates with maybe an ornamental border around the rim," says Tim Samuelson, author and housewares historian. "But with Fiestaware, you could pick and choose and have everything be a different color. It was a revolutionary step."

Fiestaware originally came in five colors: red, blue, yellow, green and old ivory or cream. Today, however, there are nearly 40 colors, For all the emphasis on color and whimsy, however, functionality remains key.

"I still think functionality comes first," Peterson says. "If something doesn't do what it's supposed to do, it doesn't matter how cute it is. It goes right into the closet and stays there."

Joseph Joseph, the innovative British housewares firm founded by brothers Antony and Richard Joseph, manages to combine both qualities.

The company made its name with a line of sleek, Modernistic kitchen items, but it recently introduced a new line of tempered glass food preparation work surfaces that are adorned with witty portraits of celebrities such as Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and Queen Elizabeth as vividly colored raw vegetables.

"Function remains key," says Antony Joseph, one half of the brother duo responsible for Joseph Joseph, the innovative British housewares firm. "Function is where you start.