hey at least we get paid extra on days we don’t even celebrate!!! Catch me working all Christmas Day like 🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️

i’m not particularly religious tho i love the ~vibes~ and overall mood of christmas. but it always bothered me that they push “holiday launch” and “holiday blend” and “make sure to say happy holidays!” when the cups (my first year at least) were “merry coffeemas” and the gift card display looks like a christmas tree and everything is red and green. most of the gift cards are christmas themed, with a few generic winter ones and like. one each for other major holidays. it feels like the want the brownie points for being “inclusive,” but don’t care to put much actual work in. which feels about right for starbucks, to be honest.

Welcome to white America. What can I get started for you?

It’s just the music at our store! They won’t let us put up any decorations, which I was really excited about. As an atheist, I’m still all for celebrating whatever. I just take the religious aspect out. But the music is so Jesus forward 🤦🏼‍♀️

Regarding the music, it's a bit much. It's not just cutesy "Baby Jesus in a manger getting gifts from the 3 wise men" it's like, worship music. Which, given Starbucks doesn't market itself as a Christian restaurant like Chick Fil A and Cookout, is just a lot to subject customers and partners of all backgrounds to when they're just coming in for coffee or food.

My store is in a historic jewish neighborhood and I’m Jewish as well. We moved the menorah gift card right up to the front register. So sick of “holidays” just meaning Christmas.

I’ve heard the family edit of Adam Sandler’s novelty Hanukkah song at my local sbux. And there’s the “Holiday Blend” in blue and gold.

But no matter how you slice it, three days after Halloween it’s Christmas at Starbucks.

i was one of the people in charge of buying decorations this year and i had to go to THREE STORES to find some hannukah decor bc we have quite a few jewish partners, it really pisses me off that the “holidays” are really just christmas and new years

If I hear Mary Did You Know play "The deaf will hear" as my deaf coworker runs around doing her thing one more time I'm going to explode with grief

Joke’s on the Christians, Christmas is mostly a pagan holiday anyway. 🤣 Christmas tree? Santa Claus? Presents? Decorations?

Huh, must depend on the store. We have some Hanukkah and Kwanza stuff :) everything says “holiday” and we do have a Christmas tree but all of our other holiday stuff is on our front display.

as a jewish person as well, I do find it annoying when major corporations pretend to care about Hanukkah when:

-it isn’t even a major Jewish holiday

-it changes every year where it falls on the calendar, for example last year it was right after thanksgiving, this year it perfectly aligns with christmas

to me it just feels performative. i’d rather starbucks give jewish partners the option to take rosh hashanah and yom kippur off, rather than pretend to care about a holiday that is not very significant just because it falls around christmas some years. just my opinion! no one even knows our significant holidays lol

I am Pagan and while I love the vibes and aesthetics of Christmas I'm glad my store isn't playing the Xmas music right now. We don't get a lot of religious people so it's not too bad. Having some silver and blue hot cups would be nice.

Muslim partner— yes it’s a little awkward sometimes

I had an SM once who would NOT let us write "xmas" on the cup, it HAD to be the full "christmas" and i was like why? and he was like some people get offended at xmas, and i was like well if that's the case then why are we even calling it christmas to begin with???

Atheist here. I can’t stand the music. I don’t necessarily mind the secular Christmas tunes, but the Jesus-y music is so triggering. Lots of trauma coming from organized religion. The music player goes back to Christmas music all the time. Even if we change it. About to plug my phone in and play something.

I’m Atheopagan and I had someone say that Halloween (Samhain) is the devils holiday. So yea, holiday season for any non-Christian denomination is tough

Hanukkah is just not very Important. They should start Rosh Hashanah and Pessach celebrations.

christian partner here and i gotta say i agree 100%,, why call it holiday launch if you're gonna autoplay christian worship music every hour? the virtue signalling is 😬😬

Last year when I tried to put up a Hanukah garland with all of our Christmas decor, my manager told me it wasn’t allowed lmfao

it’s never made sense to me that it’s “holiday launch” but everything is christmas themed besides a few gift cards & some of the 1lb coffee bags. for a company that prides itself in being inclusive, they sure do a bad job at it. i’d love to see more done for other holidays. our store has a lot of customers that don’t celebrate and have told me before it sucks that nowhere really celebrates them

i’m not religious, so holidays to me are more of a family gathering (even though they are religious & see holidays in a different light than i do) for me.

It's hilarious, people yell at us for not celebrating christmas meanwhile fucking everything is christmasy and red and green

AGREE!!! so exhausting as a jewish partner to be drowned in the christmas celebrations. they shouldn’t claim it’s a “holiday” launch if it’s really just christmas.

No because I do not care

the music is SO christian too like come on 😭😭😭

God, I definitely feel the fuckin exhaustion here. My family has always celebrated Yule/Winter Solstace, and I always feel in a weird place about "holiday" launches at work. A lot of the decorations are the same bc they were adopted/stolen, but I know no one is putting out mistletoe and holly for Yule ): I worked in cosmetics recently and there was a whole stupid sign for Clinique's "holiday" decor. "MERRY CLINIQUE"

Like..... wut?

Anyway. Happy Hanukah in advance, friend

i am not religious but i think this goes past just christmas for me especially with my being in the south. holidays are fun or whatever but oh my god the lack of equal representation irks me and my coworkers overall lack of ability to recognize that not everyone believes in what they do. though i am not jewish i constantly wonder why they even bother with the Hanukah gift cards just to slap them onto christmas shit. that completely defeats the point 😐

Sell a couple pretty blue cups for fucks sake!!!

As a Jew I can’t stand Christmas season. It’s constantly people telling me that Christmas is a secular holiday and I should be festive, and feeling sorry for me that I don’t *get* to celebrate it. It’s so condescending and shows so much ignorance a complete lack of respect for other religions’ holidays. I love celebrating holidays that apply to me, and I don’t feel empty inside because I don’t celebrate Christmas.

In terms of Starbucks, working during holiday season is awful because I’ve had customers straight up call me disrespectful for wearing my Magen David on Christmas. Maybe I’m bitter but I think I’ve earned it.

I don’t get why the cups are still red and green only

In my district the stores were told we couldn’t decorate with anything not included in the Holiday launch kit. Partners at my store were pretty upset.

I'm a Pagan that still celebrates the secular Christmas in addition to Yule. I love the ambiance of Christmas, the stories and how we celebrate, I even love the vibes of Holiday launch though I wish we did it later!

The straight up gospel on the playlist *weirds me out.*

Like, that one Bethlehem song I always want to skip because its so very...not starbucks! Thankfully we don't play the playlist at our store thanks to some finagling but man...I don't mind Christmas but the playlist is So A Lot. I've shared many an exasperated conversation with Jewish and Atheist customers about it, and my other Pagan coworkers aren't exactly pleased either just don't know how to go about it. We're situated in WAY too diverse of an area for that stuff to fly imo.

I’m Jewish fuck it mane let it roll lol

I celebrate Yule. But most Christmas traditions are Yule or other pagan traditions wrapped up with a nice little Christian bow. So I ‘chew the fish and spit out the bones”.

I’m no longer Christian, but I have to admit I love anything Holiday related, and I do wish that the other holidays were involved a bit more. Christmas is just more culturally relevant - full of popular songs and imagery.

The Starbucks by my apartment, in a very Jewish area, has stars of David, and stuff like that up year round, so it may just be dependent on where you are.

I’m down for some Hanukah tunes, but they don’t really connect with as many people as Christmas music does - mainly because Christmas has moved far away from really being a religious holiday, its more of a widespread cultural and commercial holiday.

I've had a few SM in my time at sbux that ask my if I'm ok with them decorating the store for the holidays. I've never minded, although I don't celebrate it I'm not going to stop other from doing as they like.

Ehh, I like the holiday season regardless. I don’t understand why there is so little representation for others around this season in store. It’s not hard to represent all the “holidays” within the holiday season. At my last job, one of my coworkers was Jewish, and so we made sure the decor for the office included Christmas stuff and Hanukkah stuff! It looked great, and it *wasn’t hard either*.

Christmas is more than just Christianity though; like I grew up celebrating Christmas but none of my family are religious. I feel that’s same for most of the western world, so they just put Christmas at the top and use that as the “holiday”. I’d be so down to go all out with holiday decor though, like dude there’s so many holidays let’s go all out with it. Make everyone feel welcome!

Otherwise I don’t mind it. I like getting to have a change of pace and vibe in life now and again. Plus, at the end of the day, I just take off the red apron and go back home to do whatever I please!

I'm atheist and I think of Christmas as a holiday everyone can enjoy.

Christmas has been largely secularized so I don't see this being that much of a problem

My mama get makes it a point to have a part of our store Hanukkah themed every year.

Agreed! Before I moved up to Seattle, I would decorate the store with Hanukkah and Kwanzaa decorations so that everyone felt included! It was always really upsetting because when I'd ask to decorate for Halloween, I was told we weren't allowed because they wanted to avoid religious affiliation. But holiday is always just christmas.

deadass, i dont really celebrate anything so i'm working xmas this year. gonna start lying and manipulating my tips

"yeah, my little sister is at home, she cant wait me to get back 😔" LMAOOO

I haven’t heard overly Christian music. I’ve heard the usual Jingle Bell Rock and All I want for Christmas as well as the traditional O Holy Night and Silent Night. I dont have a problem with it but I definitely feel it’s too early yet. We will all be sick of Christmas music by December 1st at this point.

It's a demographic thing. Well, it used to be. Now it wouldn't surprise me if it's just laziness on the part of corporate. We used to ship cool Hanukkah stuff to the stores in areas with large Jewish populations, while the rest of us got the boring Xmas crap. (Anyone else remember the green toilet brush trees of...2003 I think?)

It could also depend on your sm/dm as to which non-corporate decor you can put out. Personally, I think that Mench on a Bench is much cuter than that creepy ass elf that ends up everywhere. I'd also really love to see some blue and white cups along with the green and red ones. Much more relaxing and less garish.

We play Christmas music now??? I never noticed

I just miss when the christmas launch was more then just new merch. I remember they used to send us some awesome decorations to deck the store out in. I took home a 5 foot glitter Christmas tree that I used for years after we got it. One year I remember getting these cool snowflakes and garland to hang all over. Now its just boring. Nothing about it says christmas accept a few window clings and cups.

starbucks filled their inclusivity agenda by making the holiday roast blue!! jewish points for them!!

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We have Hanukkah cards at my store? Also NO One calls is Christmas launch it’s always been holiday

anytime the xmas playlist comes on i change the playlist. so absolutely tone deaf.