2021 Home For the Holidays

2021 Home for the Holidays Lincoln Daily News November 24, 2021 Page 13 the closet or hope chest, these sweaters burst out in glorious tackiness as people start to think about the holiday. By definition an ugly Christmas sweater is any sweater with a Christmas theme that is in bad taste, tacky, or gaudy. Of course, like beauty, ugly is in the eye of the beholder. Most would agree, the more embellishments – reindeer, Santa Claus, tinsel, candy canes, elves, pom-poms, bows, jewels, bits and bobs - the uglier the sweater. Ugly sweaters made an appearance in the 1950’s with the mass commercialization of Christmas. No one takes credit for the first ugly sweater, but it is believed that the intention was to be fashionable. Called “Jingle Bell Sweaters” the hand- knitted one-of-a-kind sweater featured distinct Christmas themed decorations. At some point, designers decided more is better and these sweaters were made to be worn with a purpose. The true arrival of the ugly sweater was in the 1980s thanks to Cliff Huxtable, played by Bill Cosby, in the “The Cosby Show.” Then Chevy Chase’s character, Clark Griswold, in “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” turned the over-the-top ugly sweater into a heart-warming expression of cheer. By 2001, Colin Firth, playing a stuffy lawyer, Mark Darcy, in “Bridget Jones’s Diary brought the sweater to a new level consuming the nation. Fueled by TV shows and social media the craze soon turned into a competition as young and old tried to top each other with the most frills to de-stress and laugh together. Continued n