Should we join the “ugly Christmas sweaters” trend? People call them “ugly,” but why? In the South, there were only people who wore Christmas sweaters that were very festive and those who didn’t. Making money and then getting rid of it has become a trend. Then, what? There is a person named Kristen in Charleston, SC.
If you think something is beautiful, then you also think it is ugly. It could be one person’s ugly Christmas sweater that another person thinks is cute.
If you were talking about a “kitschy holiday sweater,” “novelty holiday sweater,” or something similar, you might want to change the word you use. Because: (1) this kind of knitwear isn’t just for Christmas anymore, and there are now all kinds of creative versions of the ugly Hanukkah sweater; and (2) most of the designs seem to be made to make the viewer laugh.
In the movie “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” Chevy Chase wears an “ugly Christmas sweater” (for lack of a better term). Jimmy Fallon, who hosts “The Tonight Show,” has a “12 Days of Christmas Sweaters” giveaway every year.
If we’re laughing with someone instead of at them, we’re all getting something good out of it. What we can agree on is that all of this has made the “jingle bell sweater,” which was once a mildly cheesy piece of midcentury knitwear, into a pop culture trend. What we really mean when we say “ugly Christmas sweater” is “bad taste Christmas sweater,” which is entirely subjective.
There are parties where people wear Christmas sweaters that aren’t very nice for the holiday (and guides on how to hold them). A competition to see who can wear the worst Christmas sweater at work. Before COVID, the Times had one of these. Coloring books for people who don’t want to color in ugly sweaters for Christmas. Ugly Christmas sweater books for kids. There are also a lot of websites and stores that sell ugly Christmas sweaters. Amazon alone sells more than 50 different types of them.
Because of this, there are a lot of ugly Christmas sweaters. The environmental group Hubbub says that there are 65 million people in Britain alone, and that’s not even all of them. People under 35 buy an ugly Christmas sweater every year, and two out of five of them only get worn once during the season. And because the sweaters are usually made of acrylic and have a lot of silly things on them, up to 95% of them are made of plastic, which means they can’t be recycled.
This is a bad way to look at it: If you don’t like fruitcake or Monopoly with your family, chances are the ugly Christmas sweater is going to stay around for a while. How do you make the best of it?
And the answer is simple: don’t buy an ugly Christmas sweater, and make your own. Indeed, Woolmark is giving away free D.I.Y. patterns and appliqués so people can jazz up what they already have and then take it back down again, cutting down on waste. Or you could have an “ugly Christmas sweater swap party.” You could keep the sweaters your friends have in the mix.
