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The Kitchen Table

Who has an Ugly Christmas sweater?

15 years ago

I have a few. I'm pulling them out of the attic next week and wearing them with pride. I may even get the kids involved and have a party.

Anyone else enjoy ugly Christmas sweaters?

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Comments (11)

Georgysmom
15 years ago
Mine are all beautiful and I bet yours are too!
jannie
15 years ago
I wish I owned one. I had a friend named Eleanore who had a sweater that looked like a Christmas gift.
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Comments (23)
Late to the party but couldn't resist adding my horror story, greatly abbreviated to reduce my stress from reliving this hellish experience. DH & I, retirees on a modest fixed income, sold our longtime house in 7/07 & bought a waterfront shack, intending to build a fairly humble retirement home within 18 or so months. Picked a local experienced waterfront builder who gave us a very affordable informal estimate; had our lot surveyed by JIM HART & ASSOCIATES of KIRKLAND, WA in 9/07, & commissioned the builder's in-house designer to plan our house at a cost of $13,600. Meanwhile, the city was busy putting further restrictions on building, so we had to rush our designer to get the plan submitted in time to avoid the new construction limitations - made the deadline by the skin of our teeth! So happy! Our builder, however, was not being too helpful & procrastinated, & we unfortunately followed his advice longer than we should have done - the upshot was that it took us until 7/09 to finally get our wft building permit - cue dancing in street! The builder then made a formal bid that was over twice what he'd estimated many months previously. We found a better qualified builder at a similar cost & were getting ready to excavate when we were informed by the city that our $13,500 building permit was rescinded because JIM HART's 2007 SURVEY WAS INACCURATE , per alert neighbor's report! Somehow the city overlooked a basic error, despite charging us $135/hr for MANY MONTHS of "expert review." JIM HART's survey incorrectly stated the ordinary high water mark. Our lot is small, & waterfront construction requirements are stringent, so this inaccurate survey meant our house design would not fit on the lot & was now useless, as we'd only be allowed to build a tiny hut if we simply modified the original building permit. We ended up forced to reapply for (& pay again for) a new building permit, get (& pay again for) a new house design, & engage an expensive architect to try to resolve with the city the problems related to JIM HART's INACCURATE SURVEY as expeditiously & inexpensively as possible (MASSIVE FAILURE!!) So now here we sit, in 11/2010, no new building permit YET, the city keeps requiring more info, & we unhappily anticipate our 4th Christmas in a rented storage unit-cum-2 bdrm apt! We thought we could at least recoup some of our expenses from JIM HART, KIRKLAND WA SURVEYOR, but unfortunately, back in the ignorant bliss of 9/07, JIM HART'S contract limited his liability to the cost of the survey only. We have lost over $45,000, EXCLUSIVE of our extended rental costs, lost our hard-won building permit & experienced over 1 year's construction delay solely due to JIM HART's BAD SURVEY! However, we know we are EXTREMELY lucky to have this type of problem - something to engage us in our Golden Years (lucky ol' DH, a former engineer, has even more diversion - he now works as an oncall security guard @ $13/hr on the overnight shift to keep us in dog food!)
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Comments (18)
Last year I was in The Container Store while they were having a demonstration of the packing cubes from Eagle Creek. It was fascinating to watch a professional fold, pack and arrange everything. It was mesmerizing, almost like an infomercial but without the hype of "buy 1 get 5 free plus a Kinzu knife if you order now!". I don't travel that much but I did have a trip to Ireland coming up so I thought long and hard about it. In the end I bought a few Space Bags by Eagle Creek which were the equivalent of large zip lock bags. They're plastic so you can see everything that's in them and after your fill them you seal it shut and roll it up to force the air out through a one way valve which compresses everything. They must be like the ones Acey posted about. The regular packing cubes are great at keeping standard clothes (suits, dresses etc) neat and wrinkle free. These are considered a companion to the regular packing cubes like the ones Susan posted and are great at compressing bulky items like sweaters or coats. I bought a few different sizes and they worked. I really liked the smaller one that I used for my toiletries. I'm always worried that something will leak so I used to double bag them in ziplocks. The Space Bags are much thicker and sturdier and did the trick. Here is a link that might be useful: Space Bags
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Comments (55)
Mine just came in. I tried it on and don't want to take it off. Size wise, I'm 5'2" and usually an 8P. I was a bit reluctant ordering Petite because while the sleeves looked long in the pic I wanted the length to cover my backside if I was wearing leggings around the house. Happy to report the length is fine. I still have to roll back the sleeves and the P Small size is very generous. It's not sloppy, but very roomy below the arms and throughout the back. It's perfect for lounging but I prefer my street clothes not tight, but more fitted, so I won't be wearing it out in the world. Great cozy find. Thanks for posting about it!
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Comments (13)
I love wild, "ugly" Christmas sweaters! "Battery powered" would add even more pizazz! (For me, anyway!) I don't know about the caption, but that is Kate and William in one sweater; Charles is to the far left with Camilla. Tussaud's figures seem to always be difficult.
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jennmonkey
15 years ago
Lots of my friends have ugly christmas sweater parties during this time of year, so I need to go to the thrift store and find noe!
Holly_ON
15 years ago
I found mine at a thrift shop at half price. It comes out every Christmas.
pattico_gw
15 years ago
I used to enjoy wearing my Christmas sweaters during the season..

But since they started the "Ugly Christmas Sweater" parties...it's not fun to wear them anymore.

So no...I don't wear them

patti
donna_loomis
15 years ago
I have one, but I will never wear it again. I don't know why I keep it. It's actually a vest. It has penguins wearing stocking caps and scarves on it and they are skiing down a mountainside that is littered with wrapped presents. Their stocking caps actually have little pom poms on them. The last time I wore it was to work a couple of Christmas seasons ago. The boss asked me to come to his office and help him with something. He was seated and I stood next to him, both of us looking at some paperwork he had on his desk. I looked down and was aghast at what I saw. Two of the penquins caps pom poms were exactly over my nipples. OMG! Probably nobody else ever noticed, but I could not wait to get home and take that thing off. I will NEVER wear it again, LOL.
schoolhouse_gw
15 years ago
Lol,donna.I never liked those sweaters, but I've seen some pretty ones on other people, not my taste. Well, one year when I was still working as a secretary one of the supv. gave me such a sweater for Xmas. It was heavily decorated and made me look 100lbs. heavier myself. The office staff decided to go for a special lunch at this time, and everyone was told to wear their "Christmas" sweaters.

Well, I didn't want to; but not to be a party pooper I did - none of the other ladies wore theirs! (supv. included). Here we were in a nice restaurant, they were all dressed up and I had my chunky Xmas sweater on.
lynn_d
15 years ago
Donna, thank you for a huge laugh! Haven't we all been there with something at one time or another? LOL!!!

Because I worked retail for a few years I have a bunch of holiday apparel.....but now that I work from home I have no idea what I will ever do with all of them! I guess the cats will get to see me in them!
patti43
15 years ago
Donna, that's the funniest thing ever!

I have a holiday cardigan. It's black with a velvet collar and toward the bottom as red sequin cardinals on green sequin branches. I don't think it's ugly though. But writing about it makes it sound really tacky.
phyllis__mn
15 years ago
Donna, loved the story....it reminds me of my discomfort quite a few years ago. I was a para in the elementary school at the time, and wore large necklaces a lot, as the kids seemed to like them. Well, one day I wore one that had three balls with fringes on them. Yep, the fourth grade teacher told me to glance down, and there they were, right on my nipples.....little gold balls with fringes. Come to think of it, I never wore that necklace again, either.
teresava
15 years ago
There is definitely a difference between the tasteful sweaters and the old tacky ones. And hey, if you like your "tacky" ones then wear them proudly!! Those Ugly Sweater parties sound fun-I want to find one at Salvation Army or somewhere!

Reminds me of my embarassing story. When I was pregnant I had a maternity shirt I loved that had pattern/circles on it. Naturally as the months went on I got more endowed shall we say. Around 8 months or so, I glanced in the mirror, and sure enough the circles seemed strategically placed on my chest!!! Since I was soo pregnant and well endowed, I swear they looked like bull-eyes!!!

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