The Starbucks Holiday Cup Fiasco

It seems that Starbucks has caused people to freak out because of their new holiday cup. Now, for many of you that have no clue what I am talking about, the coffee company has a different cup design each Christmas. Here are a few of the previous ones.

Starbucks Holiday Cup 2012 Starbucks Holiday Cup 2013 Starbucks Holiday Cup 2014As you can see, these are the ones from 2012-2014. If you notice, they are all red and they have something we associate with the Christmas season.

If you notice though, they do not say Merry Christmas or seem to show anything specifically Christian. Look, non-religious folks can celebrate the Christmas holiday, maybe they enjoy pine trees, snowflakes, and pretty lights.

The new cup is a bit more plain. It is just red, well technically it looks like it goes from red to an almost cranberry color. This has caused some complaints. Some folks just think it looks too plain and they are upset about it.

Starbucks Holiday Cup 2015Sadly though, that is not what some Christians are mad about. They feel that Starbucks is part of the “war on Christmas.” In fact, here is our old friend, Josh Feuerstein rallying the Christian warriors.

Again, notice how the cups never said Merry Christmas? This is another case of someone trying to make something out of nothing. But hey man, go ahead and have Starbucks write Merry Christmas on your cup. In fact, I suggest that if anyone sees this guy in line at Starbucks (or anyone else doing this cool trick), when the person calls Merry Christmas to get their drink, step up and be like “yep, Merry Christmas, that’s me.”

Also, if anyone out there has ever or still works at Starbucks, please let me know if you are forbidden to say Merry Christmas. We hear this all the time that companies are forcing their employees to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. I can tell you from experience that the company I work for has never said that people cannot say Merry Christmas.

Does it really matter what we say? So long as we are actually saying something to our fellow human beings? Getting pissed because someone did not say Merry Christmas to you seems pretty much the opposite of what Jesus Christ would do on his birthday.

Jesus BirthdaySadly though, this kind of stuff never seems to stop. I feel like this kind of crap has been happening for awhile. I remember Jason telling a story about when he was a server and he told a guy to have a Happy Hanukkah and the guy got mad and said that he was not some damn Jew, to which Jason responded “sorry that you are not one of the chosen people.”*

Or do you remember the super nice Christian getting mad at me over a cookie? Yeah, instead of focusing so much on what people say to them during a holiday, maybe they should spend more time actually reading what that Jesus fellow said about how to treat people.

*Jason, I apologize if I screwed that story up a bit…

Author: Ngewo