Each year during December as I’m walking through the halls, I see it. Mostly red with some green and tacky print in the middle. Ugly sweaters. The issue of wearing these on a regular basis has evolved and more often I am finding myself eavesdropping on conversations about ugly sweater parties. It is almost unbearable to hear the details of everyone’s punny sweaters.

    Personally I have had the unfortunate fate of attending one of these parties this year. You can be sure that I did not wear an ugly sweater. While the party was fun and exciting, I did spend a lot of my time cringing at the pun’s written on people’s raggy sweaters.

    Now why is this a thing? I mean it’s already awful that parents are forced to attend Christmas work parties, but now society is putting it on teenagers and young adults?

    Why do we want to spend 20-40 dollars on a gross, itchy and an uncomfortable sweater? We are only going to wear it for a maximum of three hours in one year. Well I guess there is always that one weirdo who wears it every day.

    But why not use those 40 dollars to donate to charity or buy yourself something that isn’t ugly? Donating to charity is much more ethical, and that’s what Christmas has normally been about. Personally, I would feel so much better knowing I had spent money on a charity with desperate people rather than spending it on dressing ugly.

    Now going to the one bright side of these parties, while often there seems to be quality food at these “ugly sweater parties,” it is completely useless. People could just get the same food and invite the same people without the ugly sweaters. It could be called a Christmas party, which sounds much better.

    Why must we waste money on sweaters that we will only wear once a year? If you really want to show us your Christmas spirit, buy a Santa hat, decorate your house with lights or bake Christmas-themed cookies. Those are the productive and much more low cost things you can do that show you care just as much about Christmas. To create the complete opposite though, one must create an evite to an ugly sweater party.

    Now to try and appeal to the capitalism hating folks, why are you giving these corporations your money? Many unethical corporations and clothing companies such as Target and Walmart are literally earning bank off of you fools.

    While I do understand the intention of an ugly sweater party, I do not like how it has evolved way out of proportion. It’s evolution in America has been so immense that it has spread globally, reaching other countries that want to be like America. There has even been an international project started to “Make the world better with a sweater.” This campaign claims to have branched out of North America and now serves customers worldwide. The website in which this campaign is run even claims to have created a national holiday for ugly sweaters. According to “Make the world better with a sweater,” the national holiday has been happening since 2011.

    Hopefully these campaigns and countries will realize that it is useless and ineffective so it will die out within the next couple of years. If ugly sweater parties are anything like memes, eventually they will cease to exist.

    Maybe I’m wrong about it’s evolution and maybe it’ll die out after 2017. I sure hope it does because after looking at the current path we are on right now, it is not looking good.