Sunday, December 2, 2007

Ugly Christmas sweater party

One of the best parts of my job is our annual Ugly Christmas sweater party. With 100 people attending and only a small Goodwill store to buy a sweater from, I always think I should buy my outfit early. Invariably I don't look for a sweater until the day of the party. This year was no exception. When I showed up at Goodwill on Wednesday afternoon I ran into 3 guys from our ministry who bought the last of the "good" stuff. The only things left were several Christmas vests in kids sizes.

My dreams of an ugly Christmas sweater were thwarted so I figured the next best thing would be to buy any ugly sweater. I found a grotesque baggy red sweater with a built in fur scarf. The creators of this ugly sweater were geniuses and attached the scarf to the neck of the sweater at the back so it would never fall off. There was even a slot for the fur to pass through the other side giving it a "scarf" look. I was awed by the creativity of the desiger in making something so hideous.

As it turns out, my sweater wasn't ugly enough. At the party many people greeted me hesitantly with,"You look cute." After hearing variations of this greeting all night I concluded that people couldn't figure out if my sweater fit into the ugly theme or not. Either I don't know current fashion and the "ugly sweater" I bought is actually in style, or my friends thought this was my new favorite sweater and they didn't want to offend me. Either option leaves me feeling insecure as to my ability to dress myself.

Moral of the story...I'm going "ugly Christmas sweater" shopping January 1st this year.

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