Dear Mr. Howard Schultz,

I’m writing to you today, because this morning I stopped off at a Starbucks located in my small, primarily white, conservative Texan town, and upon receiving my gingerbread latte with soymilk and low-fat sweetener, I was instantly shocked to find my holiday cup completely naked. No snowflakes, no snowmen, no gingerbread, no nothing. I shouldn’t need to explain why this is unacceptable, but unfortunately there are parts of this great nation teeming with flaming liberals bent on ruining the Christmas season– or as they call it, “winter.”

I would like to begin by addressing the statement issued by your company: “This year we wanted to usher in the holidays with a purity of design that welcomes all of our stories.” Excuse me, “purity of design”? You’re going for subtlety, a simple kind of elegance, clearly. Riddle me this, Howard, what in the hell is subtle about the Christmas season in capitalist America?? Our tree went up fifteen minutes after we’d finished Thanksgiving dinner, and 20 minutes before our whole family went to the mall to engage in physical combat with other families over a television that neither of us really needed. I haven’t worn real clothes in a month, the sweater I’m currently wearing is made out of actual reindeer, and has approximately 67 jingle-bells on it. Almost our entire country regularly tunes into a television channel that plays nothing but Christmas themed content. And you want to go for subtle.

As for “welcoming all of our stories”– is that really necessary? I mean, they’re only 5.9% of the population in the entire nation, can’t we just marginalize them a little more? Personally, I think it’s okay to marginalize a population if they’re already an extreme minority. What’s a little more isolation? Howard Schultz, it’s come to my attention that you, yourself, are Jewish, but you must understand that I hold you responsible for adhering only to America’s Christian population, as we are clearly historically more religiously persecuted than Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists COMBINED. As an act of social justice, I have taken to giving my name as “Merry Christmas” to force you to participate in my religion. It’s quite clever, yes? The only thing is that every time I do it, the coffee tastes vaguely like human saliva, haven’t quite figured that one out yet.

I strongly hope you will consider adding something appropriate to the cups. In previous years, I’ve seen snowflakes, those were quite nice as far as Christmas decorations go, and I do mean Christmas decorations. They’re pretty exclusively symbols of Christmas, and as far as I know, members of other faiths can’t even see snowflakes. They don’t make snowmen, either, I’ve noticed. In my entire life, never have I seen a Jewish snowman. It’s quite strange, really.

Merry Christmas to you and yours, Howard. You’ll be hearing from me soon if these wild, hippie, “subtle,” contemporary art cups don’t disappear from the market soon.

Sincerely,
Christian and Confused
Conservative St. Nowhere, USA