Shells Guide: Ugly Sweaters

            I’m not the type of person who dives right into the Christmas spirit. I don’t decorate and I certainly don’t wear hideous Christmas sweaters. The ugly sweater has become a thing, with holiday parties mocking the knit abominations. The uglier the better and jingle bells on a sweater are a bonus. I once had one of these ugly sweater parties. It was a huge hit. One of my friends even hit the Good Will stores trying to wrestle up extra ugly sweaters for those who arrived at the party unprepared or unmotivated. In addition to the excellent finds at Good Will, we added an extra layer of disaster with ribbons, bells and bows bought at a craft store. There was ugliness everywhere and it was fun to show off one monstrosity after another. 

Before my party, I was telling someone at work about the planned festivities. Lucky me, the queen of Christmas sweaters walked into the conversation and started asking me questions. “Are my sweaters ugly Christmas sweaters?” Trudy has quite the collection of ugly Christmas sweaters. She has a different one to wear every day of December. She gets so into the Christmas spirit that I couldn’t tell her the truth about her horrid fashion sense (which doesn’t start or end with the sweaters, whew!). I told her the sweaters she wears are just Christmas sweaters and ugly sweaters are really old, ratty looking sweaters. I was pretty convincing. Lesson of this Shells guide: you can avoid ridicule from me if you steer clear of wearing Christmas sweaters all together… that is unless you’re posing for a facetiously funny holiday card.