At first I thought it was just going to be one person, one article, one small outrage that would fade into the background... but as this past week progressed, I noticed more and more how people were truly outraged at Starbucks having red cups for the holiday season. I just have one question.
Why?
Like, honestly. Why? Why is there an uproar? Why are we arguing about this? Why is there even a discussion about what kind of coffee cups Starbucks uses? I expected something outrageous to be in the first article I read - that Starbucks renounced Christianity, or something super extreme. And then I discover... they took little reindeer and snowflakes off of their cups. And people see this as an attack on the basis of Christmas itself.
I was just baffled. Seriously? Really? This is the discussion we're having right now?
For those who don't know, Christmas isn't about reindeer. Or snowflakes. Or the color of a cup. Christmas is about -- wait for it -- CHRIST. It's a celebration of the birth of Christ. It's a holiday that rejoices in the birth of Jesus, the man who would die for the sins of humanity. It's a time for love and joy and giving. And we're arguing over a cup.
Perhaps the most outrageous thing I heard about this whole thing came from Joshua Feuerstein, a former television and radio evangelist, who said, "Starbucks removed Christmas from their cups because they hate Jesus."
I'm sorry, are we looking at the same thing? Because if anyone read about why Starbucks made the cups this way, it wasn't to start a war on Christmas. It was to create a blank canvas, according to the VP of Design and Content at Starbucks, Jeffrey Fields. They wanted people to be able to create their own stories, instead of pushing a story on their customers. That doesn't make them anti-Christmas or anti-Christianity.
So what I'm trying to say here is this: relax about these cups. There are so many corporations out there that actually don't care about Christmas, but promote Christmas because it's profitable, and whether or not Starbucks is one of those corporations is really none of our business. And it just gives Christianity a bad name when we freak out about something so ridiculous.
So please. Lay off the cups. Drink your coffee, don't drink your coffee, I don't care - just stop complaining about it, please.
P.S. Also, the cups are red, which is a Christmas color, so... yeah. Your argument is basically invalid. Thanks for pushing me to rant about a topic as completely irrelevant as the design on a disposable coffee cup.
