“Do you realize that Starbucks wanted to take Christ and Christmas off of their brand new cups? That’s why they’re just plain red. and they HATE IT!!!!,” he outlined his complaint. In a video titled “Starbucks REMOVED CHRISTMAS from their cups because they hate Jesus. In response to this minimalist cup, conservative Christian internet evangelist Joshua Feuerstein launched a counter-war on Starbucks, striking back at what he perceived to be their cup-based “war on Christmas.” The Red Cup, Starbucks, 2015 (ink, paper). We can call this an ideological decision, or just a business one: Starbucks knows who its audience is, and it knows that audience is increasingly diverse. “This year we wanted to usher in the holidays with a purity of design that welcomes all of our stories.” “In the past, we have told stories with our holiday cup designs,” said Jeffrey Fields, Starbucks’s VP of design and content, in that year’s cup statement. With the exception of the first two years, all the cup were shades of red.īut in 2015, the brand debuted a two-tone ombré cup - the top part was “poppy red,” fading into a more soulful “cranberry” - without any seasonal symbols at all. Since at least 2015, the holiday Starbucks cup has become a battleground in a one-sided fight over American valuesįor the first 18 years, the holiday cups featured what the brand called “symbols of the season,” including but not limited to: holly, snowflakes, stockings/ice skates, reindeer, Christmas trees, Christmas lights, Christmas ornaments, and doves. It’s become - improbably, and at least partially by accident - a barometer of our national values. And that speaks to a bizarre fact of modern life: Starbucks is no longer just a coffee chain.
The real notable thing here is not these particular cups themselves it is that the holiday Starbucks cup has become so culturally loaded that this is a story at all. They’re fine cups! The cup critics at Refinery29, in fact, deemed them “the best we’ve seen in years.” They are extremely tasteful, in a very safe sort of way: pleasantly abstract very Christmassy, but without much of the more heavy-handed iconography of Christmas - they’re ripe coffee cherries, okay? - and evocative of simpler times, like 1997. The “Flora” version features holly-esque “ripe coffee cherries,” also featured on the holiday cups of 20, and the red-and-white “Espresso Houndstooth” has something to do with how the brand’s Christmas Blend Espresso Roast coffee is dark and rich and so is the pattern of houndstooth, which is likewise seasonal, because it looks like flames. The argyle green star cup - “Stargyle” - alludes to an illustration of “a couple reaching up to place a star atop a holiday tree from Christmas Blend 1999.” The “Stripes” cup is intended to tastefully evoke the extremely controversial (“iconic”) red cup, while also referencing the sealed seam that runs along the back of Starbucks coffee bags. and reinterpreted them with graphic flair, and a dash glitter and shine.” In the spirit of nostalgia, the company “snipped pieces from Starbucks holidays past” for this year’s cups, adding “doses of vintage colors and patterns. StarbucksĪs the press release for the occasion explains, the four cup designs are meant to capture the two-decade history of the holiday Starbucks cup, first introduced in 1997. The 2018 lineup of Starbucks holiday cups, minus the reusable red one.
It’s November, which means Starbucks has officially unveiled this year’s “holiday cups” - a lineup of four festive (but not too festive!) disposable options and one reusable cup, which is plain red.
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