If there’s one thing I love about this time of year it’s the sweaters. Yup, sweaters. My personal favourite is argyle, so much so that it was even incorporated into name of the coffee shop trio I was a part of a couple years ago: Argyle Speedo

Now that I think about it, I think it might be a bit of an obsession. I mean, I’ve got several pairs of argyle socks and at least five or six argyle sweaters. Hell, at work all the aisles of cubicles are named and I recently moved into aisle ‘A’ a.k.a. “Argh! Aisle”.

I almost bought another argyle sweater today at Old Navy (30% off!) but heard my wife’s voice echoing in my head from yesterday. Something about possibly wearing sweaters that aren’t argyle pattern. I can’t be certain because all I heard was “argyle” and I drifted off into a colourful diamond dreamland.

Even better than argyle though, is the quintessential holiday garment: the ugly sweater. These have become such a hit that people are throwing ugly sweater parties where each attendee has to wear the ugliest sweater they can find. In the little village where we live (Hespeler, within the city of Cambridge, Ontario) there was an ugly sweater float. Even the NHL has a line of ugly sweaters you can purchase directly from their web site (I have an Ottawa Senators one that’s positively horrible looking).

http://shop.nhl.com/Ugly_Sweaters

I did a bit of research on the topic (one Google search) and naturally ended up at http://www.uglychristmassweater.com/ where they claim that none other than Bill Cosby is considered to be the “father” of the ugly sweater. While hard to argue with such a spectacular array of terrifically gauche knit attire, I’d like to think that good ole Sparky Griswold, a character made famous by Chevy Chase in the holiday classic movie “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”, played a larger role from a pop culture perspective.

Whatever your fashion style choices are for the season, try to have fun with it. Me? I’ll be stocking up on argyle and ugly sweaters and getting out my stretchy pants for the big Christmas dinner at my sister’s place and the in-laws on the 27th. I’ll be wearing this:

Tweet me a picture of your best ugly sweater: “Hey @andrewbutters here is my best #uglysweater”

~ Andrew