Ugly sweaters spread Yuletide cheer

Holidays are about traditions.

Most Americans' Christmas traditions include covering their homes in lights, decorating trees, hanging stylized stockings and frosting baked goods to look like Santa.

But my Christmas tradition is even gaudier than my neighbor's life-size nativity scene and blinding light. I relish in the ugly Christmas sweater.

I've been wearing ugly Christmas sweaters forever. My first was hand-knit by my grandmother and, bless her heart, was not supposed to be quite as ugly as it truly was.

What started as a sweet gesture, quickly transformed into the crowning glory of my adult sweater collection. The prancing reindeer and strands of lights consuming the child-sized sweater made it the fugliest of all Christmas sweaters.

Like Ron Weasley, I continued to get ugly sweaters for Christmas, but unlike Ron, mine were purchased with intent and attention to ugly. People in my life scoured the racks at Goodwill and Saint Vincent de Paul's looking for the perfect gift: a purple sweater with snowmen (big and small) dancing or a re-creation of the nativity scene on a green zip-up hoodie.

While some wonder who would think to make these sweaters, I wonder who decided to throw them out. Like peppermint hot cocoa and the Festivus episode of Seinfeld, ugly sweaters became an essential part of my holiday season.

At this point, it should be abundantly clear that all of my holiday traditions are oddities (I won't even get into my rampant belief in the Christmas elf that comes in a flying hat). But in past years, others have jumped on the ugly sweater trend.

This year, I received a Facebook invite to Annual International Ugly Sweater Day on Dec. 17. Would I be attending? Ummm, yeah, I've been attending by myself since I was five, but thanks for the invite.

For those of you joining the ugly sweater trend who may not have quite the collection I do, let me give you some shopping advice.

Saint Vincent de Paul in Sioux Falls generally has the greatest collection of ugly sweaters. Grandma-approved, these sweaters will carry you through any ugly sweater party you find yourself at this holiday season. I even found my orange menorah sweater at Saint Vinnie's, so it has a pretty ecumenical selection.

Other obvious places to look are Goodwill, your grandmother's closet, and in a pinch, Y's Buys.

I would avoid shopping at Saver's for two reasons. They generally overprice their used goods and have a pretty limited selection of adequate Christmas sweaters. Saver's tries too hard to pretend it's not a thrift store, when quite obviously, that's what it is. Uncool.

For those of you unwilling to leave the house to shop, you can check out uglysweaterstore.com. The benefits of web scoping your ugly sweater are many – you can shop in your pajamas, while drinking peppermint cocoa and watching Seinfeld – but the website will overcharge massively. A little legwork here will save you a ton of money.

Ugly sweaters, however, are not for everyone. Some of you should probably just stick to Santa cookies and roasting chestnuts.  But whether you're ready to implement the ugly sweater into your holiday traditions or not, it's safe to say it's becoming a trend that spans further than my closet.