The Downfall Of Ugly Holiday Sweaters Or Big Sweater Is At It Again.

The Holiday Season has set in. Whether you’re the biggest Holiday fan in the world, or a real life Grinch, we all have complaints about this time of year. Bloggin Hood is right there with you. From December 14th-25^th, enjoy the 12 Days of Blogmas, with consecutive posts ranting on various Christmas and other holiday topics. Remember, you can like something and still find something to complain about, as long as you look hard enough. Today, we’ll discuss the evolving tradition of ugly sweaters.

Thus far, the 12 Days of Blogmas have made me sound like a bitter, grouchy curmudgeon. I don’t think that’s a fair description. Sure I’m bitter about a lot of things. And yes, on occasion, I’m grouchy, but for good reason. All these new fanged traditions are making me angry. Now get off my lawn and carol somewhere else!

Oh, I’m sorry. I had a curmudgeon episode there. It happens when one cursed, pandemic plagued year ages you three decades.

However, I’m not against every holiday tradition, despite what you have seen. I do enjoy some traditions, especially the ones that involve multitudes of desserts. Sign me up for as many Christmas cookies as possible. I suppose that’s not a tradition so much as being fan though.

One tradition that grew on me, for a time, were ugly Christmas sweaters. This doesn’t sound like something Bloggin Hood would support, but once upon a time, I did. However, we have to re-live the Ugly Sweater timeline to truly appreciate it. Grab some popcorn and I’ll give you a history lesson. This one is on the house.

Once upon a time, Ugly Christmas Sweaters were sold as regular old sweaters. Consumers regularly bought them, arguably out of necessity or because they didn’t have taste. Every year, these hideous sweaters would be given out as gifts or worn to the dozens of holiday obligations everyone has. At this point in our timeline, everyone thought this was fine.

Nobody had the gall to question the attire. After all, this is what we all wore during the holidays. Who were we to question why we all looked like ornaments that get hidden in the back of the tree. I mean way in the back.

I’m not a fashion expert. My wardrobe varies from a T-shirt and shorts, up to a t-shirt and jeans. I’ve tried to argue against wearing a collard shirt to a wedding when I was 14. Nobody in their right mind should listen to me about my fashion opinions. But hey, today is the 6^th day of Blogmas, and you’re still reading. Let’s be honest – you’re not playing with a full deck either. My question for the clothing manufacturers is who the hell designed these things?

Remember, this is before Ugly Christmas Sweaters were acknowledged. People kept buying them, and I really don’t understand why. When I think of “classic” Christmas Sweaters, they are typically Red and Green, though sometimes shades of blues included. These sweaters had a very basic pattern and a generic symbol of Christmas. The ones I wore had snowflakes, but Reindeer, ornaments and Christmas trees were very common. And my god were they tough to look at.

Remember that manufacturers had to review each of these sweater designs and approve them before they were mass produced. Imagine the designs that got rejected. What godless abominations failed to reach shelves? Did somebody try to include the Easter Bunny on their design?

There’s a resume booster, “Created 13 Christmas sweater designs that were rejected.”

Nevertheless, these monstrosities continued to hang on clothing racks and fly off them. Truthfully, we were all guilty, unless you don’t celebrate Christmas. Assuming you do celebrate, don’t act like you weren’t part of the problem. Look through one old photo album and every member of your family will be wearing one of these things. We all didn’t know better, and we didn’t care.

I feel like the term “Ugly Christmas Sweater” entered the mainstream roughly a decade ago. Before this, I don’t think anybody actually like the garments, but no one never expressed it out loud. I’m sure some “trendsetters” were acknowledging this well before the 2010s. However, they were the same people who denied ever wearing them in the previous paragraph*. ¹.

Whatever the exact date was is unimportant. What matters is somebody recognize our ridiculousness and voiced their opinion. Somebody looked at their red and green snow flaked winter wear, and hated it. It only took one voice to spark the flame. Now, thanks to this brave soul, we began to reassess the situation. More people voiced their disdain, and changes occured.

I like to think of this first outspoken person as the Bloggin Hood of their generation. Whoever this hero was, I imagine they also began to speak out against mashed potatoes being a good side dish and immediately lost the people’s favor.

At this point, we all agreed that most Christmas sweaters were ugly, but we all owned them. Were we really going to just throw them all out and start dressing like normal human beings? No, that would be wasteful. So, for the first time in humanity’s history, we all made a wise decision and put the ugly sweaters to good use. We began to wear them ironically.

Ok, good use was a huge stretch. But we didn’t throw away millions of sweaters, which is a good thing. We also couldn’t donate them all as that seemed cruel. The needed deserve nice things, not ugly sweaters.

I enjoyed the ironic ugly sweater era. We all had an ugly sweater, or could at least buy one for fairly cheap. Holiday parties often evolved into ugly sweater parties. These were the exact same soirees as before, but we were no longer ashamed of our attire. We laughed at it together. Dare I say it, but, it was fun.

Yes, yes, I admitted something Christmas related was fun. Please ignore the flying pig outside your window. You and I both know this blog will change it’s tone soon.

And then, a few years ago, the pendulum swung back the other way. Ugly Christmas sweaters went from an accepted practice, to a simple fun holiday gag, to an overproduced joyless hack.

I hope that pig had a safe landing.

After we all recognized that most Holiday sweaters were ugly, the sales began to dip. We didn’t need to gift these disgusting garments, as everyone already owned one. If you were one of the 17 people in the world that didn’t have an ugly sweater but needed one, they were easy to find. The market no longer had any demand, but still had stockpiles of supply.

In our Candy Candy write up, we briefly discussed economics. I minored in economics in college, and hadn’t used it in real life until that blog post. Now, we’re about to put the degree to use twice in one week for Christmas themed blogs. God bless the education system.

Businesses hate to lose money.** ². They are also quick to adapt. Big Sweater saw people were enjoying the ugly sweater concept. They knew they needed to strike when the iron was hot. But the companies were smart enough to know nobody needed the classic ugly designs.

Over the next few years (think between 2012-2016), Big Sweater began producing more and more holiday sweaters. They continued to have the old holiday feel, but had more intricate designs. Instead of being predictable colors and patterns, these sweaters had more going on. Often, they were depict more detailed Christmas images, and went for puns. Despite what people say, everyone frigging loves a good pun.

There was a whole range of new sweaters that hit stores when the holidays started every year. There was plenty of Santa sweaters of course, but it didn’t stop there. If it was Christmas related, it was on a sweater. I’ll admit I have two of these. The first is a gingerbread cookie who’s leg is breaking that says “Oh Snap!” The second is of Snoopy, hanging on the roof of his doghouse in a Santa hat that reads “Just Chilling”.

Now, I like both of these sweaters. I don’t think either one of these is ugly, which is why I still have them to this day. Over the course of the ironic ugly sweater era to today, the clothes companies have adjusted their product. First, tweaking their designs just a bit, to then making sweaters that don’t look so bad. We went from buying ugly sweaters out of tradition, to getting new clothes we actually like. This seems like a complete win. How could I possible hate this?

Because, as always, the corporations didn’t stop. Big Sweater kept churning out sweater after sweater until we’ve come full circle. Today’s sweaters have combined the ugly designs of the past, with references to Christmas movies and memes. Holiday Sweaters have become an extension of internet culture. I’d argue Holiday sweaters have never been worse.

Here’s a screen shot of the sweaters that appear when I search for ugly Christmas sweaters on google. I’m not sure if this will lead to a copywrite strike on my blog, but this is a free website.*** ³. Look at the horror.

So this is where we’ve come. I don’t know where to begin.

• We have multiple sweaters commemorating the 2020 toilet paper shortage. The holiday season is a time for joy and to be thankful. What better way to do so then remember the times we weren’t sure we could clean our ass.
• Speaking of ass, somebody designed a blog with Santa having a thong. The bigger issue is somebody else approved it. We also have Santa doing the Floss, which I believe is a dance from Fortnite. Finally, there’s Santa reenacting Kim Kardashian’s “Breaking the Internet’ video shoot. The only thing broken is my spirit.
• Why the hell are their two sweaters focused on Santa’s ass? And this is only a small segment of the market. There could be many, many more. As one of the best Santas of all time, I’m offended. I’m also wondering if I should have worked on my glutes more over the past 5 years. Apparently, you need to be packing a wagon to play St Nick.
• We have two versions of the “Oh Snap” Gingerbread cookie, but these versions seem sadder than mine. Why am I feeling bad for a cookie on Christmas? That’s not the frigging point of the holidays Big Sweater. Do better!
• There is a Snoop Dogg Sweater, referencing his slang that hasn’t been relevant for at least a decade. In fact, the last time I heard anyone use this slang, it was went Doggie Fizzle Televizzle was on MTV. If you remember that, you’re either old, or have terrible taste in television. I’ve outed myself as both.
• The only sweater that you can call ugly is the Fuzzy Christmas tree one. Out of this selection of twelve sweaters, this is the only one that fits the criteria. Everything else is a meme inducing nightmare.

Here, Big Sweater has released a line of clothing, pretending to be hip with the times. This appears to relate to popular culture, but it’s painfully obvious it’s a hollow effort. Nothing here is funny, or screams Christmas. It sure as hell makes me want to scream. I haven’t even addressed the dick and balls sweater on the bottom row. My God, there’s a dick and balls sweater. Why is that a thing?

Even Etsy, the website built around skilled, hand made crafts has a sweater in the screen shot. Big Sweater has infiltrated mom and pop shops? It’s a Christmas nightmare. My heart can’t handle it.

Finally, WHO THE FRIGGING HELL WOULD WEAR A CHESTER THE CHEETO CHRISTMAS SWEATER?! WHY IS THAT A THING PEOPLE CAN PURCHASE!

I’m sorry, I just had a violent bout of my curmudgeon episodes. I better get to a point and take my medication****. ⁴

Holiday Sweaters have ran the gambit, beginning as an ugly, but accepted tradition. At some point, society owned the absurdity of the clothing, and made fun of itself. This tweak seems miniscule, but I actually think it’s important. We all take ourselves too seriously. This acknowledged we had a dumb tradition, made fun of it, but still kept it as part of the culture. We didn’t bastardize it; we laughed at it, and kept it going.

Then, companies sniffed a potential profit and ruined a good thing. Holiday sweaters aren’t ugly anymore. Instead, they try to paste outdated, irrelevant moments in time for a few quick sales. Will anyone know what the floss is in a few years? No. By that time, the dance will be a relic, and everyone will continue to lie to their dentist about the hygiene practice.

The problem with our current holiday sweaters is that they have a very limited shelf life. If you buy any of the above examples, they are relevant for one, or if you’re lucky, two holiday seasons. Will anyone want to wear 2020 references after this year ends? I certainly hope not. Hell, if you purchase one of the Santa ass ones, you probably won’t have a holiday party to attend in 2021 anyway.

These are clear cash grabs. Rather than have an ugly sweater or two that you can cycle in every season until they’re worn out, you’ve need to update your wardrobe each year to stay relevant. When did holiday sweaters become like a video game franchise? I’m not shelling out the cash for a meme sweater that isn’t funny anyway.

I have a third Christmas sweater I didn’t mention before, with good reason. It’s not a meme sweater, but it’s already lost its pop culture standing. It was a Game of Thrones sweater, featuring the dragons that said “Christmas is Coming”. There were three lights that would flash when I moved to show dragon fire. For a holiday sweater I was a fan. I got that before season 8 aired. Now, I can’t wear that thing without having a 45 minute discussion on how Spoilers ruled the iron throne.

I linked to a Bloggin Hood mini on the topic, just in case you plan on watching the series and want to be spoiler free. Personally, I recommend watching through season 6, and then pretending the show was cancelled. You’ll thank me for it.

I thought the Game of Thrones sweater would be good for a decade. Instead, I struggle to wear it, knowing how porrly that show end. Again, this one wasn’t even a meme. Imagine wearing Flossing Santa in 2029?

Imagine wearing the Chester the Frigging Cheeto sweater in 2020?

We almost had a good holiday traiditon. Truly, we did. Instead, we let the corporations run this one too. The next thing you know, Christmas is going to be commercialized.

Wait…

1. *You know who you are, Bob Bobberton.
2. **And people didn’t believe I understood economics. HA!
3. ***Donations are heavily encouraged. Feel free to post your banking information and credit card information below. Social Security numbers are not required, but certainly accepted
4. **** To fight chronic curmudgeon episodes, I listed to two 90s rap songs and have one mini hot dog. And by one, I mean one tray.