If you’re hunting for a holiday-themed ironic coffee table book for someone special, Rock Your Ugly Christmas Sweater has you covered. For those of us Awkward Family Photos fans, the site includes a gallery of sweater photos that didn’t fit into the book. The project also includes memorable Hanukah and Kwanzaa getups, too.
Ugly Christmas Sweaters were the centerpiece of cross-cultural harmony last weekend at the despedida/farewell party for the students’ Costa Rican host families. (Another hit: a white elephant gift exchange, at which your correspondent almost brought a nine-year-old boy to tears by threatening to “steal” the pack of cookies he’d unwrapped. Upon realizing my grave miscalculation, I opted for taking a new gift from under the crooked Christmas tree).
In the Venn diagram of holiday pleasures, Ugly Christmas Sweaters are the point where tacky notions (rhinestones, felt patches, puffy paint) overlap with irony.
More good news: Ugly Christmas Sweaters aren’t the kind of treasure you need a map for. Most thrift stores have a bumper crop of these things, especially at this time of year. Where are all of these previously owned garments coming from? Are there that many fourth-grade teachers in the universe?
I was also curious about what etsy offers in this department. (Seasoned WanderChic readers know that I’m partial to perilous browsing on etsy, especially when it’s in the name of Research or counts as Writing Time.)
Esty store Elves Gone Wild features delights such as the 80s glitter teddy bear vest pictured above (photo from their site).
If you want to gather with likeminded Ugly Christmas Sweater friends, consider this party pack from esty seller The Manic Moose (with their witty tagline “Moose-staches for Everyone”).
Lastly, though I’m a long way from Texas, I was inspired by Joanna Wilkinson’s Ugly Christmas Sweater (her photo below) on Keep Austin Stylish. Irony never looked so hip.