Handcrafted holidays: behind the 2026 Caribou Coffee® holiday cup
As soon as Halloween ends, we shift into holiday mode and start sipping all things festive, like Ho Ho Mint Mocha®, Cranberry, Spicy Mocha and Cookie Butter®. The drinks themselves are a cornerstone of the holiday season, but they’re simply not complete without a holiday cup to match!
The holiday cup is a long-running Caribou Coffee® tradition, just like your favorite Spicy Mocha. It gets an update every year, and the process begins way, way, way before the holiday season. Basically, once one holiday wraps up, we’re busy thinking about how to evolve the cup for next year!
The inspiration behind the cup
This year’s cup designs are all about genuine coziness and charm, with a hand-drawn element that adds a personal touch that our guests love so much about Caribou. It’s what makes us, us. And it’s intentionally leaning into the analog trend guests are hungry for.
Digital Designer Jen Moss said the process began with a deep dive into a variety of inspiring materials, colors, and textures: crocheted quilts, knitted sweaters, mid-century lettering, and “spark” patterns to represent Caribou’s purpose of sparking chain reactions of good, plus vintage holiday cards.
“We looked through some older iterations of Caribou holiday cups, and noted two things,” Jen explains. “Previous years had been super colorful, which while we loved the variety, made them harder to distinguish as ‘Caribou’ out in the wild. We used to incorporate more hand-drawn elements and premium crafty aspects, like our original ‘’Bou-isms,’ and thought it might be nice to bring it back to those classic Caribou aspects.”
Meet the 2026 holiday cup designs
The first design, which Jen fondly calls “holiday stamps” because of its holiday card-inspired look, evolved from a design reminiscent of vintage stamps to one inspired by holiday cards and gift tags. Sparks also popped up in the design, as they’re a commonly used brand element and helped reiterate the “Caribou”-ness of the cup. “This design also references some of our holiday flavors, with motifs of peppermint and the little holiday berries as a nod to Cranberry and Ho Ho Mint Mocha,” Jen shares.
The second design, which also appears on compostable cups and the holiday candle, was nicknamed “winter wonderland” by the design team because of its snowflake and spark illustration.
The third and final, nicknamed “holiday sweater,” was pulled from a knitted pattern previously created for last year’s holiday cup clutches and blended with snowflake and spark illustrations. This is the coziest of the three, literally inspired by holiday sweaters, Jen says. (It also shows up on the ornament!)
Each of the three hot cups features Cari-blue as the main color instead of more traditional holiday colors like red or green. The cold cup keeps signature elements of the year-round design, with added sparks and snowflakes for a little holiday flair.
A holiday cup Easter egg
Keep your eyes peeled for another enchanting little detail. “All of the designs, hot and cold, have a little hand-drawn bow incorporated above our main logo to imply that Caribou is something to be gifted,” shares Jen. “A gift to yourself, a gift to give a loved one… a little bit of joy and a treat that can act as a small present any day in the holiday season.” The bows also appear on the cup clutches. “When the clutch covers our logo and bow, you still get a bow on top of the cup, literally ‘wrapping it up’ like a red ribbon,” says Jen. Aww! If that doesn’t make you want to pull up the app and order your go-to holiday drink, what will?
Cookie Butter® is a registered trademark of Monin, Inc. and used under license.