Claims are spreading across social media like wildfire that Starbucks is engaging in “Christian-cleansing” and that the coffee chain “hates Jesus” and/or are trying to wipe out or neutralise Christmas.
Why? Because the festive red Starbucks cups this year do not contain festive themed images.
Over previous years, the cups have featured wintry images that many associate with Christmas. This year the cups are a plain red design featuring only the company logo.
For most, the notion that this is an indication that Starbucks is trying to engage in any kind of religion-bashing is patently absurd. But we’ll break it down into points here –
Starbucks do clearly celebrate Christmas.
Regardless of what is on their coffee cups, Starbucks do clearly celebrate Christmas. And they do call it Christmas. They offer gift cards with the Merry Christmas greeting and other festive themed images, they vend Advent calendars, their staff wish their customers ‘Merry Christmas’ and wear Santa hats, they have a product called “Christmas Blend”, they discuss Christmas music on their blog, and only last year they predicted a record purchases of their festive themed gift cards.
The notion that because their festive themed cups lack festive images means that Starbucks is wiping out Christmas is, not to put too fine a point on it, hilariously nonsense.
Starbucks have already explained the design.
Starbucks have already explained why they chose a plain red cup, and it has nothing to do with holiday neutrality or wiping out Christmas or bashing on Christians.
This year’s iconic red Starbucks cup features a two-toned ombré design, with a bright poppy color on top that shades into a darker cranberry below.
“We have anchored the design with the classic Starbucks holiday red that is bright and exciting,” said Jeffrey Fields, Starbucks vice president of Design & Content. “The ombré creates a distinctive dimension, fluidity and weightedness.”
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The images in previous years were not always particularly religious any way
It is perhaps prudent to note that the designs that featured on Starbucks cups in previous years were not particularly Christian to begin with. Many cups featured a snowman, whilst others pictured a girl ice skating and a dog sledding. Those designs, for example, depict illustrations associated with winter, and whilst they may loosely be associated with Christmas, they certainly have no association with a particular religion.
Thus the cups are no less religiously-inclined that they ever have been.
In Summary…
One pastor tried to “prank” Starbucks by claiming his name was Merry Christmas, thus “forcing” the Starbucks employee to write Merry Christmas onto the red cup. He made a video about the prank and implored others to do the same.
We’re not sure how imploring people to go into Starbucks and purchase their products really constitutes pranking them, but the video propagates the misconception that any of this actually has to do with Starbucks “hating Christians” or trying to wipe out Christmas.
Another rumour we often hear is that Starbucks employees are banned from saying Merry Christmas, which is also baseless. Many people in the retail sector are more than happy to wish a Merry Christmas to their customers, though many are wary that the customer may not celebrate the holiday, so will say “Happy Holidays”, but will say “Merry Christmas” if the customer instigates the exchange. Again, this has nothing to do with “wiping out Christmas” or bashing on a particular religion.
There is simply no evidence to support the notion that the coffee chain is on any kind of anti-Christmas campaign. They clearly do celebrate and embrace Christmas, and whilst they may do certain things that could be considered religion-neutral, like saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” in certain instances, this is just something that many businesses do – not because they hate Christmas or Christians – but to appeal to the multicultural demographic that is the United States.
Spreading this utter nonsense is, well, nonsensical.