You know somebody actually designed that

Right before Thanksgiving (now you know how delinquent my writing has been), a former roommate hosted an Ugly Holiday Sweater Bar Crawl. Now we have all seen those awful holiday sweaters that someone’s mom or annoying coworker wears all throughout December. Usually these perpetrators have multiple gaudy sweaters and sweatshirts (or even the dreaded combination sweater with attached mock turtleneck) because the perpetual holiday sensory surrounding convinces them they MUST HAVE one for each of the twelve days of Christmas (SO HELP ME GOD!!!!).

The bar crawl concept was pretty straightforward…wear an ugly holiday sweater/sweatshirt/etc and drink beer. What started as an Evite turned into a showcase in Metromix and eventually a number two highlight weekend activity. When I showed up, the host ran over to me and said it is starting to get nuts. She then pointed out the different groups of randoms who either decided to join in because they read about it in the RedEye (Chicago Trib free paper) or Metromix. I didn’t realize what a hit it was until we were walking down the street to the next bar (all drinking venues were thankfully within a block or two of each other in Wrigleyville) and a group of three girls were starring us down. I thought at first they were trying to figure out why a group of 20 people were out in the open on a Saturday night all wearing horrible sweaters, Christmas lights, funny hats, etc (actually one guy dressed up as a big present). Then as we approached, they ripped open their jackets to reveal glitter reindeer awesomeness!

The numbers grew from 20 to 50 to 90 by the time we reached the last bar. We totally took over every place and filled it with holiday cheer. It was fun to arrive at the scheduled bar to find two dozen fellow ugly sweaters already there waiting for us. One particular highlight was talking to the three street flasher girls. I asked them where they got their sweaters (most found them at thrift stores) and the girl said:
“Well actually they are all my Grandmother’s. I called her up last week and asked if I could stop by and borrow some sweaters for a ‘fun holiday party’ I was going to. Well when I arrived, Grandpa told me Grandma went out for a second but had laid out a whole selection of sweaters. I accidently said in front of him that they would be perfect for the ugly sweater bar crawl and he said ‘wait, you didn’t tell your Grandma that they are ugly right, you should be ashamed of yourself because she wouldn’t stop talking about how nice it was that young people were finally embracing the holiday spirit’”. Ah ha ha ha.

Hopefully these pictures will capture the wide range of awfulness we wore. Everything from ski bunny sweaters, penguins with bells, embroidered holly gone wild, and the garland turtle neck where represented. I personally wore a hideous red sweater with built in shoulder pads (not kidding) and a sequined snowman that spelled out the words HO HO HO (the o’s being his body). If that isn’t awesome enough, it had a sewn in button that played “Let it Snow” when pushed. I rock! The sad thing is that the sweater is my Mom’s! Yep I even remember her wearing that thing around when I was a kid. I snagged it out of the ‘to be donated’ box at home and accused her of trying to destroy a masterpiece.