It's National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day

Today is the fifth annual observance of an event that is becoming an internationally recognized celebration: NATIONAL UGLY CHRISTMAS SWEATER DAY has been commemorated on the third Friday in December every year since its inception in 2011.
If your Christmas sweater is only moderately ugly, you still have time to dash to the craft store (or the hardware store if you're in Provincetown) and get some pompoms, jingle bells, felt, tiny plastic elves and rain deer, and stitch them artfully onto your sweater before you go out tonight.
The yearly celebration of this day is creeping across the globe, and it's even doing some good around the world at the same time. All of the information below is found on the website of the National Day Calendar.

NATIONAL UGLY CHRISTMAS SWEATER DAY

National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day has grown to be an international event. Now occurring on the third Friday of December, the holiday gives holiday lovers worldwide a chance to wear their ugly Christmas sweaters. In 2014, they partnered with Save the Children in their “Make the World Better with a Sweater” campaign. You can now help children across the world by wearing an ugly sweater on December 18th and encouraging others to go online and donate.

For more information go to http://www.nationaluglychristmassweaterday.org/

OBSERVE

Try these tips to take the prize on National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day:

                  Animal or cartoon characters with a holiday theme are a great starting place. Think reindeer, snowmen, mice, kittens or elves.

                  Select ridiculous colors. The more they clash, the better.

                  Embellish. Scratch that. Over-embellish! Pom-poms, bells, felt, tinsle or any other glittery, jingly items laying around the house.

                  Add a collar, dickey or ruffle.

                  Electrify it! Put Rudolph to shame and go to the head of the team with bright, flashing lights!

                  Give it some 80s flair with shoulder pads.

Wear your ugliest Christmas sweater. Use #ChristmasSweaterDay to post on social media.

HISTORY

National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day was started in 2011 by ugly Christmas sweater lovers as a way to lighten up the busy holidays and to show off their absurdly, ugly sweaters.  The day has grown in popularity and is celebrated worldwide.

So there you have it. We should turn this into a real Provincetown tradition, with folks applying as much dedication and creativity to their hideous sweaters as they do to their carnival costumes, and with prizes to be won as we raise money for our Soup Kitchen, for example.

For a jump start, there's an online shop at www.tipsyelves.com, the start-up ugly sweater company that made a TV appearance on Shark Tank, got a deal with a shark, and now is a multimillion dollar venture. Caution: while some of their sweaters are merely ugly, a few others are naughty, and a couple are downright offensive (or laugh-out-loud funny, depending on your sense of humor.)

I'm beginning tonight to plan and create my own sweater for next year. It might take me that long to find all the trimmings I have in mind. In the meantime, Happy Festivus, which, by the way, is celebrated in most of the world on December 23rd, as it was on the Seinfeld episode that aired on this day, December 18th, 1997.