Many of the idealized visions of Santa that I remember as a kid came from Coca Cola ads. Sure, there were plenty of TV commercials with Norelco floating heads and all of that but Coca Cola’s classic pictures of Santa in print ads said more about the season than the fact that the big guy was chugging on a Coke.

All of this is a backdrop to the tempest-in-a-teapot issue this holiday season that’s seen Coca-Cola ditch their snow-white can after customer hysteria took over, mistaking regular Coke for Diet Coke.

Here’s a case where our wired society may get a little carried away. All of a sudden, the Internet is flooded with complaints from confused consumers.

“I purchased three six-packs because I thought they were diet,’ Gail O’Donnell of Danvers, Mass., told ABC News. This is news?

Plus you have the online drama queens playing their part: “PEOPLE! Don’t be a victim,” wrote one consumer on Twitter, warning that mixing up Coke and Diet Coke is “a SHOCK to the palate!”

What’s shocking is that people are a/ so easily confused and b/ don’t mind making such a big deal out of their own stupidity. I could see the concern if we were mixing up medicines or something but these are nothing but fizzy drinks.

Coca Cola, of course, with visions of Classic Coke dancing in their corporate heads, caved quickly, figuring the tumult would only build over a life-changing issue like getting the wrong soda at the store.

There was a reason for the white cans, by the way: Coke’s campaign is part of a partnership with the World Wildlife Fund to highlight global warming’s threat to polar bears’ Arctic habitat. Coke is contributing up to $3 million for conservation efforts.

Polar bears have stolen the stage from Santa in Coke’s holiday advertising in recent years but I still like those ads with the traditional Santa hefting that mighty six-and-half ounce bottle by the Christmas tree. Just think of the Twitter campaign that would have been launched if we’d had the Internet around when they phased out those little bottles and went to cans.