It happens every December, before dinner parties and cocktail events. My husband digs deep through his closet, pushing through sweaters like piles of autumn leaves, until he emerges victorious with the knitwear item he's been searching for: that legendary, ugly Christmas sweater.
This isn't actually an ugly Christmas sweater. It is, in fact (and in honor of our interfaith union), an ugly Christmas sweater, one knit of glowing shades of acrylic and featuring Rudolph with candelabra instead of antlers. Candle lights with the push of a button. Every time I see her, I can't help but close my eyes and laugh.
These days, the ugly Christmas sweater is both a subgenre of knitwear and an art form in its own right: ridiculously super cute; frosted tinsel, glitter, snowmen and other Santa Federated clichés; A giggle gift for all of us. It's an expression of very bad taste, it's cool, and it's more unnecessary than ever (in the year, in the date) When feelings are running high.
This is why the ugly Christmas sweater has been around—and actually thrived—for decades. “Jingle bell jacketIt first appeared on store shelves in the 1950s, an early harbinger of the coming commercial holiday season. But, in a tailoring twist of a very strange sort, the sweater has risen above the Ka-Ching's nature in its origins to become a gesture of faith.
Although bell ringer jackets in their first incarnations looked mostly like Nordic-lite, by the 1980s those relatively tasty reindeer and snowmen had morphed into a high pop culture outfit, thanks in part to "The Cosby Show," where Bill Cosby and Cliff Huxtable have upped all the bets when it comes to flashy knitwear.
His sweaters were topped by the Griswold family in 1989's "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," which starred not only Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo, but a whole host of eye-catching holiday yarns. Colin Firth gave the dress a whole different jerk when he pouted by knitting his own cartoonish reindeer like Mark Darcy in "Bridget Jones's Diary," and by 2002 the official Ugly Christmas party was born—the brainchild of two Canadians, according to "The Ugly Christmas Sweater Party Book: The Ultimate Guide to Getting Ugly. "
Social media gave the trend a new impetus, and eventually led to it Jimmy Fallon “12 Days of Christmas Sweaters,” not to mention the 53 different ugly Christmas sweaters offered on Amazon, thousands of ugly Christmas sweater patterns on Etsy as well as Poshmark (all ugly Christmas sweaters have to go somewhere), and DIY guides by companies Like Woolmark. There are spinoffs such as Ugly Christmas Sweater coloring booksAnd the Children's booksand even gingerbread men. And, of course, workplace ugly Christmas sweater competitions (The New York Times has one of these).
However, after judging such a competition, I think it is fair to say, in terms of its ability to lift one's mood at any given moment; In their ultimate expression of human strength and as a reminder that while life is serious, clothes can be fun, it's Ugly Christmas Sweaters that really are — well, pretty.
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