I have a confession to make. Up until two years ago I had a closet full of holiday sweaters, sweatshirts and tee shirts. Not only Christmas ones but also ones for Halloween. I had ones with 3D characters (Snowman, Santa), some that were sparkly and ones that even glowed in the dark. And yes… I wore them. To be honest I thought they were cute and funny. I never really saw myself as looking like a total nerd in them.
One day I was cleaning out my closet because we have too much “stuff” and no place to put it. Many of my holiday ensembles I haven’t worn in a long time, so I decided to clean them all out and donate them. All I kept was three items. I kept a Halloween shirt that says “This is my Halloween costume” on it. I also kept a holiday shirt with the Peanuts characters on it. In addition I kept one sweatshirt with the characters from Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer on it. I never wore them last year and so far this year I haven’t worn them either. I’m 40-something years old and I don’t know if I look like a total dork wearing them or not. If anything I might just wear them around the house. My family already knows I’m a nerd. LOL!
The infamous “Ugly Christmas Sweater” is all the rage now. People are actually having Ugly Christmas Sweater parties. In fact, if you Google Ugly Christmas Sweater Party you’ll find a lot of websites dedicated to the idea. WOW! Whew knew that all the the sweaters and shirts I donated would suddenly be “in”.
You can even buy party invitations for an Ugly Christmas Sweater AND books about Ugly Christmas Sweaters. It’s crazy!
I was approached by the site The Sweater Store, to review a couple of sweaters from their site. They have the largest selection of Ugly Christmas Sweaters.
I love how their site is set up. You can shop specifically by size, gender, color, sweater type (cardigan, pullover, turtleneck, sweatshirt) and my personal favorite way to shop by – flair! By flair they mean what kind of decorations do you want on your Ugly Christmas Sweater? Do you want snowmen, plaid, wreath, angels, dogs or any other subject matter? They have dozens to choose from.
They have tops from about $20-$40 with $25-$30 being the average price.
I was originally going to get a sweater for myself, but since I don’t like to be in photos, I didn’t think that was a good idea. Instead I picked up sweaters (well, one sweater and one sweatshirt) for my teenagers – except I didn’t tell them about it. I wanted to pull a bit of a joke on them.
When my kids were little we used to take them to Sears to get their holiday photo taken. The older they got them more they resisted so eventually we gave up and just took their picture at home in front of our tree.
This year we didn’t purchase our daughter’s school picture. She’s in high school and the photo packages are a small fortune. The grandparents are not getting any current photos of the kids this year.
I told the kids that we were taking them to Sears to get their holiday photo taken again because their grandparents REALLY wanted current photos of them. The kids moaned and groaned a little bit but said they would do it (as if they had a choice – LOL).
I also told them that I bought their holiday outfits. They were NOT pleased to hear that. In the past I had made sure they were dressed really nice. The older they got the more I let them pick out their own outfits. The last thing a teenager wants to hear is that their mom picked out an outfit for them. 🙂
I told them I was super excited about what I picked out. They did not share my enthusiasm.
When we were all at the dinner table finishing up dinner I told the kids I wanted to show them what they were wearing. I went to the bedroom closet to get the holiday sweater and sweatshirt and then returned to the dining room and held them up for the kids to see them. Oh my goodness… the look on their faces was PRICELESS!
My son just sat there staring at me with his mouth wide open. My daughter looked at her sweater for a minute or two and said “I only need to wear it for the photo, right?”. I told her the photo and then when we went out to dinner (at a fancy restaurant) on Christmas Eve. With that my son got up a walked away and left out condo unit (he was trying to be funny and overly dramatic). My daughter just sat there and played “Let’s Make a Deal” with me (“If I don’t have to wear it to the restaurant I promise to clean out the litter box every day during our vacation” – I should have taken her up on that ;-)).
I made the kids put on the tops (my daughter had a sweater and my son had a sweatshirt) and stand in front of our Christmas tree.
My son was making goofy faces and my daughter was less than amused as you can tell. My crazy husband managed to “photo bomb” the photo too. LOL.
After several attempt I was finally able to get the kids to take a decent picture in their “Ugly Christmas Sweaters”.
I hated to tell them that it was all a joke, but I figured I had “tortured” them enough. They were relieved that they didn’t have to wear them out. My son especially because his sweatshirt had sparkly rhinestones in the center of the snowflakes and he felt it was way too girly for him. My daughter said the sweater was comfy and cute. She said she WOULD wear it, but not “out and about” locally. She said she’d wear it if we went upstate where no one knew her. She actually kept the sweater on for a while because it was comfy.
I am going to make our Ugly Christmas Sweaters from The Sweater Shop a new family tradition. I am going to pack the sweater and sweatshirt away and have them wear them next year and so forth. Our daughter has stopped growing so it should fit her. Our son might get taller, but it’s a man’s large size so it should fit for a few more years. Then I’ll pass them on to another family member.
Who knows, maybe they will be invited to an Ugly Christmas Sweater party.
If you are looking for the perfect holiday sweater, shirt or sweatshirt, or perhaps something to wear to an Ugly Christmas Sweater party, look no further than The Sweater Store, www.TheSweaterStore.com. You can also check them out on Facebook, Twitter and even Pinterest and Tumblr. I give the guy in the shiny green pants on their Tumblr site all the credit in the world. I also love some of their Pinterest boards.
Kimberly
*I received a free product sample in order to do this review. There was no compensation. The opinions expressed are my own and are not influenced in any way.