Ugly Christmas Sweaters

The ugly Christmas sweater trend is flying high now. Those of us who love or hate the ugly sweater fashion of December should be prepared for a lot of ugly holiday sweaters if flying Alaska Airlines on Dec. 15. Alaska Air  has declared December 15 to be its National Ugly Holiday Sweater Day celebration. On that day its offering early boarding to customers wearing “festive holiday sweaters.” It's a one day chance to show your lack of good taste for Christmas as the one day promotion will be offered on the entire Alaska Air network, including flights operated by Virgin America and Horizon Air.

Alaska announced the promotion as, “This fun promotion not only allows guests to board early on that day, but gives people another opportunity to dust off that ugly holiday sweater hanging in the back of their closet.” I have some ugly Christmas T shirts but no sweaters, given that I am not a sweater wearer. I wear my ugly Christmas T shirts selectively as they engender a broad response, including threats of bodily harm for the wearer.

If you wonder who wore the ugliest Christmas sweater on an Alaska Air flight you can see posts from the wearers on Face book. Alaska is posting them there. But Alaska s not the only airline that loves ugly Christmas sweaters. The craze has spread to Europe as well. Dutch airline KLM has a web site that sells its own version of the ugly Christmas sweater. (https://shop.klm.com/nl_nl/klm-christmas-jumper-l.htmlad ) Believe it or not, those uglies appear to have been so popular that the carrier is now out of stock in all sizes.

I am not sure when the ugly Christmas sweater mania started, but it was in response to some brave souls, often as a joke, wearing them at parties or cookie exchanges. Now department stores are filled with them, Wal mart sells them and thrift stores this time of the year have many for those who want to recycle the ugly side of Christmas. Be brave, get one, put it on and run for your life when an angry mob tries to assault you for your brazenness!