Halloween is officially over, meaning that it is finally time to start thinking about the holidays. In years past I would get really annoyed about how early people would start talking about Christmas. I always saw Thanksgiving as the marker to start discussing presents, decorations, and to begin singing Christmas tunes. This year though my Christmas spirit started as soon as the clock hit 12am on November 1st.

The other thing that hit on November 1st was the new Starbucks Christmas cup. I do enjoy the occasional (or daily) Starbucks drink, although I am more of a Dunkin' Donuts fan. However, every single year around this time of the year people go absolutely crazy about the design of this cup and it is both fascinating, bewildering, and a little disappointing.

At most other times of the year Starbucks typically uses their plain white cup with the green siren on it and no one says anything about it. But as soon as the Christmas cup comes out people are up in arms. Several years ago the design contained Christmas themed symbols, such as trees, ornaments, snowflakes, etc. In recent years Starbucks changed their design completely by having a solely red cup.

The red cup became controversial. Starbucks said it was a blank canvas that "welcomed all stories". However some felt that Starbucks was waging a war on Christianity by getting rid of the Christmas symbols on the cup. I personally think that is absurd. If you are placing your ideals and importance of religion on a cup that holds your coffee in it then I think you may want to reconsider what Christianity means to you.

Last year Starbucks introduced the green "unity" cup which fired people up even more. It featured a single line drawing of all different kinds of people, drawn by Shogo Ota. It came out a few days before election day and Starbucks came out with a statement saying, "During a divisive time in our country, Starbucks wanted to create a symbol of unity as a reminder of our shared values, and the need to be good to each other". This sparked outrage with people saying that they didn't want Starbucks' political agenda handed to them when they were handed a cup of coffee. A few days later Starbucks released a line of 13 winter themed cups.

About a week later Donald Trump came out and proposed the idea of boycotting Starbucks because they got rid of their Christmas themed cups. It is statements like this that disappoint me about the state of our country. Everyone cares so much about a coffee cup but has already forgotten about the tragedy in Las Vegas and the natural disasters in Texas and Puerto Rico.If people took the energy that they put towards being angry at Starbucks to an actual cause the world would start to become a better place.

This year there doesn't seem to be much outrage yet. The cup is white with red and green Christmas designs and the green siren. The majority of it was left white so that customers can color it in. The holidays are a time for love and joy so instead of spreading anger about your coffee cup, go spread happiness and peace cause our world could use a lot of that right about now.