The “ugly Christmas sweater” is a tradition that is slowly taking hold in France, where people organize “ugly christmas sweater parties” at the office or with their friends. Like many end-of-year traditions, this one comes from the Anglo-Saxon world.
But the sweater in question wasn’t always followed by the adjective “ugly.” Before being called that, which is a way of making sure everyone understood the sarcasm, the Christmas sweater was a very “first degree” family tradition: knitted sweaters were given away at Christmas by hand, with motifs related to the festive season: reindeer, snowflakes, snowmen, fir trees.
Make no mistake about it, the Christmas jumper was already a bit special, a bit childish and regressive. But when a grandmother or an aunt had spent several days knitting it, we wore her sweater without flinching. In the 1980s, the Christmas sweater began to be mass-produced, purposely imitating handmade sweaters: large patterns, garish colors and thick wool.
A prize awarded at the end of the evening
In 2002, two students from Vancouver (Canada) organized an “ugly christmas sweater party”, a tradition that has continued in the city ever since. Everyone must come with a Christmas sweater, now ironic, and the prize for the ugliest sweater is awarded at the end of the evening.
We wear it while showing that we clearly perceive its kitsch side and far from the standards of good taste. The concept is exported to the business world, where massive Christmas ugly sweater parties are organized. In general, the thing is documented in images, if we are to believe Google (note the colors sting the eyes a little).
The paternity of the ironic use of the “ugly Christmas sweater” is however disputed with the Canadian students by a heroine of cinema: Bridget Jones. Unless it was she who gave them the idea. In Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), the heroine meets the future-man-of-her-life-even-if-it-is-complicated at her parents’ Christmas buffet. Marc Darcy wears a reindeer head sweater, and Bridget Jones is immediately much less excited.
Humor or a little hypocritical elitism?
Whatever the true origin, there is now an International Christmas Sweater Day on December 21. As Vox points out, there are ugly sweaters featuring American football team mascots and even Vogue magazine articles telling you why you need to have your own ugly sweater. But not everyone understands this irony.
The Vox reporter says that a few years ago, her aunt said during Christmas preparations that “in big cities, people wear Christmas jumpers just to make fun of them.” She had heard about this fashion on television. The aunt in question made matching Christmas sweaters for the children of the family every year and did not see the problem. The scene obviously takes place in a small town in Nebraska, far from the parties of New York or San Francisco.
Those who ironically wear their Christmas sweater would therefore, according to Vox, demonstrate a somewhat hypocritical elitism. “We allow ourselves the whim of a funny Christmas sweater, while insisting that, of course, we are not the kind of person who would buy and appreciate such an object in the first degree. »
And to regret that we can’t sincerely enjoy the “magic of Christmas” without having to organize quirky parties to show that we are above all that.
