How Starbucks’s annual holiday cup became a battleground for the heart and soul of America

It’s November, which means Starbucks has officially unveiled this year’s “holiday cups” — a lineup of four festive (but not too festive!) disposable options and one reusable cup, which is plain red.

Here they are.

Will people be mad? Let’s discuss.

As the press release for the occasion explains, the four cup designs are meant to capture the two-decade history of the holiday Starbucks cup, first introduced in 1997. In the spirit of nostalgia, the company “snipped pieces from Starbucks holidays past” for this year’s cups, adding “doses of vintage colors and patterns ... and reinterpreted them with graphic flair, and a dash [of] glitter and shine.”

The argyle green star cup — “Stargyle” — alludes to an illustration of “a couple reaching up to place a star atop a holiday tree from Christmas Blend 1999.” The “Stripes” cup is intended to tastefully evoke the extremely controversial (“iconic”) red cup, while also referencing the sealed seam that runs along the back of Starbucks coffee bags.

The “Flora” version features holly-esque “ripe coffee cherries,” also featured on the holiday cups of 2013 and 2017, and the red-and-white “Espresso Houndstooth” has something to do with how the brand’s Christmas Blend Espresso Roast coffee is dark and rich and so is the pattern of houndstooth, which is likewise seasonal, because it looks like flames.