The Attack of the Christmas Sweaters

Recently I felt the need to spill my guts about my complete lack of the “decoration gene.” I will, eventually, get around to putting up a Christmas tree and a few ornaments and seasonal oddments of seasonal decor that I’ve been given or collected over the years. I love how a really Christmassy shop or home looks, I just can’t be bothered to buy all the crap, store all the crap, put all the crap up, and take all the crap down.

I define “really Christmassy” as “plenty of lights, pretty old ornaments in great abundance, beautifully arranged and tastefully chosen.” There’s a florist near work that falls into this category. They put up a breathtaking seasonal display. In fact, they put a beautiful display for every major holiday, because looking beautiful is how they entice shoppers to enter, intending to purchase a floral arrangement and departing with a few pretty knick-knack type gifts.

I don’t include cheap plastic crap and plushies that wiggle and play stupid seasonal songs in my definition of a tasteful holiday display. And I definitely don’t include ANYthing animated, inflated, or over-illuminated (in the case of an outdoor yard display, anything that requires an FAA clearance is probably lit up too damn much).

My anti-Xmess, anti-bling stance extends to “amusing holiday sportswear.” I own a couple of items that I wear during the holidays – actually, the red-nosed reindeer fleece robe gets used most of the winter, because it’s warm and doesn’t have a belt. David gave me a wool pullover that is sort of a stealth holiday sweater: it has a rusticated applique of a deer-like ruminant on it, and the only clue that it’s holiday wear is that the nose is picked out in red thread. It’s cute, it’s warm, and it’s not gobbed all over with random ho-ho crap. I am not into wretchedly excessive holiday decor, and that includes seasonal fashions.

Anyway, this quiet little reindeer pullover in shades of brown and beige is not the typical holiday sweater, of course. Once again I part ways with my sister Timmy on matters of fashion, because I seem to recall a few eye-popping items in her closet that came with battery packs. Yes, a sweater with a string of real Christmas lights on its tree. Funny and even appropriate at a family gathering on Christmas Eve, but some people start wearing these things before it’s even December. Actually, the kind of people that seem to have a super-abundance of the decoration gene (the ones that decorate their desks for Arbor Day, for example) wear their Hallowween sweaters starting on the first cool day in September, then switch to their Turkey Day sweaters (with huge appliques or knit depictions of turkeys, horns-o-plenty, pumpkins and so on) at midnight on November 1.

Okay, so it’s the Monday after Thanksgiving, right? And the first thing I see in the break room is a big old hang-dog Christmas sweater with several snowmen all over, Santas, trees, and stockings, and it was getting a cup of coffee. Somewhere deep inside the knitwear, one of my cow-orkers lurked in all her holiday inglory.

That she was also wearing baggy white cotton shorts was testament to the somewhat warm but blustery weather we were hit with last night – because as I’ve explained previously before, it’s okay to wear shorts if “ITS FIFTY DEGREES!”

I shouldn’t really complain, because I wear the same 3 or 4 pairs of jeans to work with the same few pullovers and turtlenecks, but why get dressed up to sit on the phone all day? So I really don’t care if my fashion (or lack thereof) is boring for my cow-orkers, because I don’t dress for their entertainment, I dress for my comfort and in the interests of practicality.

Neither of which allows for the abomination known as “the Christmas sweater.” At least as far as I’m concerned. I may wear my stealthy reindeer pullover once or twice this month, but not until it’s damn close to Christmas.