ACROSS AMERICA — Are you under pressure this holiday season to find a hideously kitschy Christmas sweater, ideally made of questionable fabric and adorned with battery-operated lights and ornaments that jingle?
Have you ever wondered how ugly Christmas sweaters even became a thing? Are they ugly, or merely festive? Do they violate fire codes?
We have so, so many questions.
As the holiday became increasingly secular and commercialized in the 1950s, novelty sweaters were added to a growing list of things people didn’t know they needed to show their cheerfulness. Although hardly garish by today’s standards, Val Doonican and Andy Williams wore “jingle bell sweaters,” as they were originally called, as they crooned Christmas songs on their television specials.
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