We weren’t sure what to make of the caffeinated madness that roiled last week when Starbucks unveiled its new holiday coffee cup to immediate scorn.
ONLY red and green? How dare they!
Bag Lady and Shopping Siren were both fairly convinced it was going to be revealed as a fake-news story from The Onion.
But, um, it wasn’t, and in its wake, we have our new favorite word (the “nontroversy”) and a quest: If red and green aren’t enough, just how ho-ho-ho and Three Wise Men are everyone else?
What say you, Burger King? McDonald’s? Dunkin’ Donuts? Seasonal heretics or unabashedly merry and bright?
Hands forced by this nontroversy, we had our mission: check out the holiday cups of any Twin Cities joint with a drive-through. (Um. Any that are still open. Sorry, Tim Hortons. We missed you by a couple of days.) We rated them on a scale of 0 to 5 — with 0 being no holiday acknowledgement, 5 being all but designed by Christ or Santa himself.
Conveniently, we’ve had expense money burning in our pocket for the past six months. And we both love a good hot chocolate.
Oh, this is a tough gig sometimes.
Grab a cup and let’s go!
Burger King
Seasonality score: 0
Description: The King didn’t even try. The cup is white with a big Burger King logo on one side and a giant, nearly cup-sized light bulb on the other. It might have been a bright idea to add a wreath. A tree. A snowman. Just sayin’.
Dunkin’ Donuts
Seasonality score: 5
Description: The word “joy” is written in red cursive and surrounded by eight seasonal green leaves (pine boughs?) to suggest a wreath. All the printing on the cup, including whether the customer wants sugar, Splenda, blue sweetener or pink sweetener, is in red or green. (Also, man, we had no idea we had so many sweet choices.) No question DD is all-in on the holidays. And, apparently, all in on sweeteners.
Arby’s
Seasonality score: 1
Description: White cup, red Arby’s logo. That’s pretty much it. We’re not Arby’s aficionados, so we’re not sure whether this is the restaurant’s take on the holidays or its regular cup. If it’s the holiday cup, it’s certainly . . . understated. Maybe the creative use of white space is meant to be an allusion to snow? To the abyss of consumerism that grips the masses this time of year? To abominable snowmen, December’s less traditionally celebrated snowmen? We’re all about benefit of the doubt here.
McDonald’s
Seasonality score: 3
Description: The medium is a red cup bearing a small purple and yellow winter hat logo with the words “warm inside” underneath; the large is a purple cup with a green holiday wreath with “welcome home” underneath. Both sweet and cute but undercut slightly by the accompanying advertisement for the restaurant’s new app — an ad that’s the same color and size as the sweet/cute seasonal logo. One step forward, two steps app.
Wendy’s
Seasonality score: 0
Description: Wendy’s mostly rusty brown/red cup has its own coffee line logo, Redhead Roasters, on one side and a tag line on the other (“Incredibly rich. Real ingredients. Dared to be different.” It goes on, and on. It’s more like a paragraph of tags.) The sealed lid on top is red but more accidentally theme-fitting red than we-meant-to-do-this holiday red. Unless their holiday cup is to come, they clearly took a merry pass. (Also, “Redhead Roasters” during the Christmas season sounds . . . bad. Bad and wrong in ways that led us to images of Santa on fire. Pause was given before drinking.)
Panera Bread
Seasonality score: 5
Description: White cup decorated with a breezy flow of green boughs, leaves and holly, along with “Sip Some Cheer” and the Panera Bread logo in a rustic green. Lovely! It’s not tagged to any specific holiday, yet it gives a definite feeling of season. Also, their hot chocolate is awesome. So we’re feeling merry AND bright.
Starbucks
Seasonality score: 4
Description: The red ombre color starts dark red on the bottom and gets slightly lighter toward the top, and smack in the middle of that is the traditional green mermaid Starbucks logo. It’s not joy-to-the-world-mistletoe-grandma-got-run-over-by-a-reindeer, but more of a chill, seasonal nod. Having sipped the competition, it’s definitely a lot merrier than some of its other fast food/coffee brethren.
And maybe that sentiment in our current atmosphere — chill — isn’t so bad.
Bag Lady and Shopping Siren’s true identities are protected by a pair of stylish, sweater-wearing Doberman pinschers (who demand to know where their burgers are if we’re stopping at a fast-food window) and the Customer Service counter at the Sun Journal. You can reach them atbaglady@sunjournal.com and shoppingsiren@sunjournal.com.
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