Neighborhood News: From ‘Jingle Bell Sweaters’ to ‘National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day’
You know them when you see them…oversized, decked out in bling, fur, tinsel and bedazzled with rhinestones and holiday lights, Ugly Christmas Sweaters have taken on a life of their own. Consider this observation about Mark Darcy, the character Colin Firth played in “Bridget Jones Diary:”
“His ugly green Christmas sweater, featuring a massive reindeer complete with fuzzy pompoms and googly eyes, acts as a juxtaposition of his pride and questionable fashion sense.”
Source: UglyChristmasSweater.com
Today, Ugly Christmas Sweaters even have their own national holiday! Since 2011, National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day has grown to be an international event.
On the third Friday of December, the celebration gives holiday lovers worldwide a chance to wear their ugly Christmas sweaters. In 2025, it’s tomorrow, Friday, December 19.
History of the Ugly Christmas Sweater
The original ugly Christmas sweaters were never intended to be ugly. In fact, they were “really an art in a way,” Asta Skocir, an associate professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, told ABC7 Chicago news in 2019.
In fact, according to the blogsite UglyChristmasSweaters.com, its origins date to the 1950s. Early versions were actually joyful, and were called ‘Jingle Bell Sweaters.’ These versions were intended to be classy, decorated with modest designs like reindeer and snowflakes, meant to be festive, and were a natural extension of expressing the Christmas season through fashion.
The garments, according to the website, complemented the refined post-World War Two era look and were deemed helpful when it came to expressing one’s holiday cheer.
Jingle Bell Sweaters rang out with the advent of the Swinging 60’s, but enjoyed a resurgence in the 1980’s.
Resurgence in the ‘Me Decade’
According to the blogsite Tipsy Elves, the ugly sweater first became a household meme in the 1980s with The Cosby Show’s Dr. Cliff Huxtable, played by Bill Cosby, leading the way.
Another influence was the insanely popular movie iNational Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Chevy Chase’s character added the holiday twist to this look. These well-known leading actors were playing decidedly unhip characters, who had no fashion sense at all. But for some reason, the idea of wearing awful sweaters as an ironic statement, somehow caught on. For a while, ugly holiday sweaters for women and men were easy to find. Then things kind of petered out again in the nineties.
Here to stay…Ugly Sweater Parties
The city credited with hosting the first modern ugly Christmas sweater party is Vancouver, British Columbia, in 2002, organized by Chris Boyd and Jordan Birch at the Commodore Ballroom as a “cheesy, feel-good, festive party,” sparking a global trend.
The party attracted more than 1,000 guests and benefitted the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
However, that story was disputed. According to the Michigan-based blog The Perna Team, the story of the ugly sweater party began not in a posh Canadian venue but in a modest student rental on Cedar Street in Kalamazoo. In the winter of 2000, Michael St. Aubin, Jason Weeby, and Bob Wedge, students at Western Michigan University, decided to host a holiday party with a twist. It was an unassuming affair, with fewer than 80 attendees, typical college fare, and a few attendees wearing nostalgic turtlenecks and sweaters.
“We didn’t call them ‘ugly,’” Weeby recalled for the blog. “They represented a sense of nostalgia for us—something warm, quirky, and connected to our childhood memories.”
Chicago’s Ugly Sweater Connection
According to a 2010 WBBM Radio report by Regine Schlesinger, Clarissa Trujillo of Chicago said that she and her husband were invited to an ugly sweater party three years prior, in 2007.
“We ran around last minute like crazy, just trying to find the perfect sweater,” she told Schlesinger. “They just weren’t ugly enough.”
So, she got the idea to start her own business, selling ugly holiday sweaters online. She says she can’t necessarily define ugly sweaters, but she knows them when she sees them.
“If I find something that makes me laugh, cringe, anything of the sort, then I know it’s classified as ugly,” she said.
To this day, Trujillo ‘s website, uglysweaterstore.com, sells the loudest and most garish sweaters she can find.
Chicago: Mecca of Ugly Sweater Parties
By 2010, Chicago was hosting major ugly sweater parties.
This weekend, many area bars will be hosting Ugly Christmas Sweater parties, brunches and pub crawls. Click here for more information.
AND….To show off your Chicago pride, post your best pictures at #UglyChristmasSweaterDay or #ChristmasSweaterDay
Alison Moran-Powers and Dean’s Team Chicago
