The holiday season means a lot of different things for a lot of different people. To some, it might mean the warmth and glow of a fire on a cold snowy day with a prickly green Christmas tree in the corner. To others, it might mean spinning a dreidel and trading chocolate coins. A few people, it’s all about the ugly Christmas sweaters. But why do people wear ugly Christmas sweaters? Do they even have to be ugly? And if not, then where did the expression come from? Well if you want the answers this holiday season, then look no further.

 To start, the ugly Christmas sweater didn’t always have Christmas in it. The joke trend was popularized with the 1984 show “The Bill Cosby Show”, where Bill Huxtable took the lead in the conquest of ugly sweaters. But it wasn’t until a full five years later that in 1989 “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” added Christmas into ugly Christmas sweaters.

Another asked question about the unlikely fashion trend is, do ugly Christmas sweaters really have to be ugly? As it turns out the definition of ugly Christmas sweaters on Google is “An ugly Christmas Sweater by definition is any sweater with a Christmas theme that is considered in bad taste, tacky or gaudy.” That means by definition an ugly Christmas sweater does have to be ugly to be an ugly Christmas sweater.

The only question we have left to ask about this holiday sweater trend is, why do people even wear ugly Christmas sweaters? 

“It’s just a fun way to celebrate the holidays,” Dr. Ryan Smith, principal of the Freedom Area Middle School, said when asked why he and his family participate in the laughable holiday tradition.

In conclusion, the holidays mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but for fun dads and uncles or Dr. Smith and his family, it’s all about the ugly Christmas sweaters.