Ugly Christmas Sweater Fun Walk/Run
/What comes to mind at this time of year when you think of adjectives like garish, tacky, obnoxious, tasteless, kitchy, excessive, over-the-top, gaudy, frou-frou, cheesy or bling-bling? The ‘fashion equivalent of a Hallmark Christmas movie’? Ugly Christmas Sweaters, of course.
Ugly Christmas Sweater Fun Walk/Run 2024
The tradition of wearing ugly Christmas sweaters originated in the 1950s with the introduction of "Jingle Bell Sweaters”. With designs that featured stars, snowflakes and stags, they weren’t ugly, just Nordic or holiday-ish. By the mid-1970s and into the 1980s and 1990s, however, ‘ugly’ entered the scene. Remember Chevy Chase’s sweater in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and in the 90s, the over-the-top ugly sweaters worn at the Christmas party in Bridget Jones’ Diary? Jimmy Fallon still does the 12 Days of Ugly Christmas Sweaters every year.
In case you’re unaware, National Ugly Sweater Day is an annual celebration that takes place on the third Friday of December each year. This year it’s celebrated on Friday, December 20th. We decided to jump the gun by a week and took part in the Ugly Sweater Walk/Run in North Las Vegas last Saturday.
I shopped at Savers thrift store for appropriate garb and shelled out a whopping $7 total for our two sweaters, but I’ve seen them in Macy’s and Nordstroms for ‘significantly’ more. Embellishments like glitter, sequins, and pom-poms add to the tackiness. 3D additions get extra points. David’s Kelly green Mickey Mouse sweater was quite handsome though certainly not an ‘ugly’ winner. My ‘Mama Elf’ sweatshirt wasn’t particularly imaginative, but it was all I could find within my limited budget. We both received elf hats upon registration. Very stylish!
The Elf Hats were a welcome addition to our stylish look!
The world’s most expensive Ugly Christmas Sweater? The rapper 2Chainz teamed up with his personal jeweler Avianne to create what they call the “World's Most Expensivest Ugly Christmas Sweater”. The black sweater with a gold Santa Claus features 50 carats of diamonds and 250 grams of gold. The price? A mere $90,000. It was not available at Savers.
An Ugly Christmas Sweater Run is just one of the holiday festivities surrounding Ugly Christmas Sweaters in Las Vegas. There’s the whole aspect of shopping for them and then, of course, you actually have to wear them somewhere. There are ugly sweater parties nowadays, the first of which was said to have been held in Vancouver, B.C. in 2002. Darn… we missed that one!
The turnout for the event was a bit disappointing, but spirits were high and people were jovial. Maybe 50-60 people participated in the event at Craig Ranch Regional Park, quite a beautiful park and one which we’d never visited before. The sweaters ranged from cat and cow themes to a family of Grinches. Some folks dressed in Santa suits.
And they’re off!
It was a chilly 41F as we headed out on the 3K route which meandered along paved paths through the park. Luckily, we’d layered up and the sun poked out from under the clouds once in a while which kept us on the comfortable side of cool. We finished in 32:15, a bit better than our usual 3/mph saunter, but hardly speed demons.
We finished the 3k (1.8 miles) in a fleet- footed 32:15!
All in all, an enjoyable morning. We got in some steps on a cool Saturday morning, visited a new local park and now we get to recycle our ugly Christmas garb to someone else.