It's that time of year again.

Last year I was writing a humor column for the local newspaper. Most readers really enjoyed the column. But then I wrote about Christmas sweaters and I was practically run out of town by a group of old ladies, calling me mean-spirited and unpatriotic. I was told by one woman that I should respect my elders (in fact, she herself is several years younger than I and I certainly have more gray hairs than she). When they started showing up at my office, I finally decided that perhaps the local public forum was not as appreciative of my sense of humor as my blog readers were. Besides, it's much too easy to track you down in a town of 4800 people.

In honor of the first anniversary of that momentous occasion, I repeat the column here:

It's now the most awful time of the year when women, especially gray-haired ones or
teachers, dust off the moth balls and start wearing those creepy 3-dimensional Christmas sweaters. Those bulky knits generally feature a Santa Claus ho-ho-ho-ing or a festively
decorated Christmas tree in bold colors of red, white and green, that are bright enough to
stop traffic on a rainy day. And similar to traffic signals, some of these cardigans even
have blinking lights!

This year I noticed one catalog offering an “authentic” Christmas sweater with an
almost life-sized nativity scene depicted on front and back. It only comes in extra-large.
It’s for the woman who wants to put the true meaning back into Christmas.

These ladies can spend $150 for one from Talbots or $11.99 for one from Walmart; it
makes little difference. No matter how much was spent, not a single woman looks good
in one of those things. Not a married woman either.

And, why do they always seem to buy them one size larger than necessary? These
same women will complain that they look fat in anything else, but have no such
hesitation when it comes to these over sized fashion statements. Where are the fashion
police when we need them?

What is scary is that these sweaters are creeping into other holidays like Valentine’s
Day, Easter, the 4th of July, and Halloween. Now women can look like engorged red
hearts, bloated white Easter bunnies, gigantic waving flags, or round orange jack-o-
lanterns. Please don’t tell me someone has designed a bulky cardigan with a 3-
dimensional cross to reflect the true meaning of Easter.The only thing that looks good in these sweaters is a dog or cat. But even then, many
pets sport an embarrassing look when seen in public while wearing one of them. Have
you ever seen a dog or cat that didn’t hunker down a bit after its master put one of these holiday sweaters on him?

Christmas sweaters have gained such a reputation that there are now Ugly Christmas
Sweater Parties. Attendees are generally adults in their 30’s who arrive at the parties
wearing the sweaters as costumes, award prizes for the ugliest, and then proceed to drink
away their nightmare visions of the other party-goers’ garbs.

Perhaps the demand from these young adults will eventually catapult the Christmas
sweater into the status of a “collectible.” The next thing you know, we’ll be watching
“Antiques Roadshow” and one of the appraisers will say that Grandma’s ugly Christmas
sweater is now worth $25,000.

Until then, I’m forgoing the purchase of one of these sweaters and investing my
money elsewhere.