Ho ho huuuh?! Starbucks, please tell me you're joking? I mean, don't get me wrong, I go freakin' bananas over an egg nog latte. IN DECEMBER! It is weeks away from Thanksgiving. I am excited about the holidays; absolutely brimming with glittery anticipation for all things green, red and Sweet Baby Jesus. But in order to preserve the specialness of the season, we (the collective We, and that includes you, Starbucks) have to set some boundaries. I feel pretty confident that most people will get behind me on this: holiday themed cups, garish displays for peppermint mochas and the hawking of this year's Christmas compilation CD - which, I guarantee you, will not contain a single song that hasn't already appeared on one of the previous albums; trust me, I have six years' worth of Starbucks Christmas CDs loaded onto iTunes and there is nothing new there - on November 1st is overkill. Major, big-time, dead-on-arrival overkill.
Seems like every year, there are fingers awag over the Christmas marketing season starting earlier than ever before. I didn't expected such flagrant, brazen shilling from Starbucks (wait: yes, I did, just not yet). Every year, right around Thanksgiving, I look forward to that magical moment when I look up at the chalkboard menu to see Gingerbread Latte in wavy, chalk lettering - heralding the warm, frothy tidings of Christmas cheer into my dark, over-caffeinated heart. Somehow, stumbling upon the same when my sugar hang-over from Halloween hadn't even worn off just felt cheap.
So I am pretending it isn't happening. I refuse to taste the egg nog until, at earliest, Thanksgiving. Back when I used to actually spend Thanksgiving with my own family [::sob::], we had a tradition of gathering around my uncle at the piano to sing round after round of Christmas carols, both common and obscure. It would officially start the Christmas season, just as the turkey and cranberry sauce settled into our bellies. I miss that, more than I can express. What I also miss is allowing the spirit of the holidays, the wonderment over a tiny baby savior, to sneak up on me slyly and sweetly, like a good friend you had almost forgot was coming for an over-due visit. Nowadays its more like having a dinner party guest show up hours too early; your hair is in curlers, the chicken is still defrosting in the sink and and that hot-off-the-presses copy of Us Weekly on the coffee-table hasn't yet been swapped for a couple of purposely dog-eared issues of The Economist. And you're like, "What the Moses!? I was NOT ready for you yet!" and you have to just accept it, be gracious and offer them a drink. Maybe, perhaps a peppermint mocha? I know just where to find one this time of year.
**Long ago, I expounded upon my ambivalent relationship with Starbucks. Still holds true.
3 comments:
Christmas isn't allowed to come out until Thanksgiving is over. Settle down, Starbucks!
hahah. i seriously agree.
today my store almost ran out of red venti cups and it was like the world was going to end. WHITE CUPS ARE ACCEPTABLE TOO, PEOPLE!!
That's insane! They don't have them at our Starbucks in Prague yet which is strange since they don't even have Thanksgiving here and all the grocery stores have already pulled out all their christmas gear! They started selling the December calendar's where you get a piece of chocolate each day in December at the end of October! Who on earth would buy an edible calendar one month early?!? It's not like they're going to run out! Although, right now I could really go for a pumpkin spice latte... mmm...
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