Such was my tweet yesterday, or rather, my reply to a tweet by Virginia Postrel, who had linked to a piece in BusinessWeek called, “The Big Business of Ugly Christmas Sweaters.” All in good fun, right?
Here’s the thing: tomorrow, we’re headed to Detroit (yes, of course, actually the Detroit area) to visit my parents (and afterwards you’ll most likely be treated to another frustrated post on Why Can’t My Parents Understand That Their Two-Story Car-Dependent House Isn’t Right For Them Any More), and I can tell you what my mom will be wearing: a Christmas Sweater. And she’ll be wearing it because she likes Christmas Sweaters, and she bought it when Christmas sweaters were popular, and was simply the Christmas version of the popular style of sweater at the time. (I remember buying sweaters at Winkelman’s, in the late 80s.) When she’s not wearing a Christmas Sweater, she’ll probably be wearing a decorated sweatshirt — the kind you can find at craft fairs, with a winter scene on it.
It’s all a part of Christmas, just as much as getting out the Christmas Plates (red with a Christmas tree on them) and her other endless decorations (angels, her collection of Santa Bears, and the like).
And I’d like to get in the heads of the people who are buying and selling Ugly Christmas Sweaters. Are they enjoying wearing the sweater, or are they enjoying mocking the sort of people who enjoy the sweater, or is their world small enough that they don’t even recognize that the latter category exists? And will the Decorated Sweatshirt be the next target of their “irony”?
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