People celebrating Diwali with their red Starbucks cups. Image Credit: Imgur
Everyone else is talking about this, so I'm finally going to chime in. The reason it's taken me so long is that I actually avoided the topic. I honestly had no idea what the deal was until I heard about it on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. I even tweeted him to follow up.
If you don't know what I'm talking about and need to catch up, there is a good post on Vox about the Starbucks Red Cup Controversy.
I recognized Josh Feuerstein in the video and am pretty sure I've seen some of his other videos. I think it's great that he is a Christian. And I agree that Christmas is about Christ.
The problem is this: Christmas hasn't been about Christ for a very long time. And when I say a very long time, I mean since Christians decided it was a good idea to move their religious celebrations to be aligned with the pagan calendar. This isn't even an American problem. This is a history-of-the-Christian-religion problem. I learned this in fifth grade when I did a report on Father Christmas. You can even figure this out by reading the Wikipedia page about Christmas.
Christ hasn't been in Christmas for a long time. I mean, his name is in there, but the concept has been pretty messed up for a long time. Most of what we know today as Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus. So when Starbucks decided to alter their holiday cup, it really was not a surprise to me at all.
In addition to the fact that their decision to change the cup is not surprising in relation to how we celebrate the holidays in the United States, it is also not surprising because of the logo of the company. If you haven't looked into it, you may want to do so now. Here are a few posts about it:
If you truly want a cup that celebrates Christ's birth, don't go to a company that has a topless mermaid as their logo.
This post originally appeared on my blog, WomanlyWoman.com.