Ugly sweaters can be a holiday hit

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Sami Parrish greeted her guests the other night wearing a black pullover adorned with ornaments and sequins, a strand of lights necklace and Christmas tree earrings.

At 15, she and her friends fully embrace this season of “ugly” Christmas sweaters.

There was Laura Rush sporting a navy cardigan and Maddie Bruder-Mattson wearing the pullover she found at the local Wal-Mart. As the Parrishes’ Roswell living room swelled, the teens snapped photos and giggled at the designs.

We like to laugh about ugly sweaters and the people who wear them, but many find something appealing about clothing so obviously ugly.

With “ugly Christmas sweater” party invitations showing up in mailboxes and emails, people here and across the country are lining up to don this holiday’s most quirky designs from pixilated reindeer to interlocking dreidels.

Yes, even the Jewish community enjoys putting a Hanukkah spin on this holiday tradition, said Michael Hessel-Mial.

The 25-year-old Emory University graduate student admits he’s long been a fan of ugly sweaters and not just during the holidays.

At one point, he said, he owned as many as 15 Cliff Huxtable-like sweaters to keep warm during Minneapolis winters, when he was a student at the University of Minnesota.

And so when his mother asked recently if he’d like a Hanukkah sweater she found on Geltfiend.com, his answer was of course. It was a chance, he said, to make a fashion statement and be playful about it.

The bright orange garment with interlocking dreidels, a four-sided spinning toy with a Hebrew letter on each side used during Hanukkah, arrived just in time for the Jewish Festival of Lights, which ended the night of Dec. 16.

“This is actually a nice step in the evolution of my fashion,” Hessel-Mial said of his gift.

Carin Agiman created Geltfiend.com after being invited to”ugly sweater” holiday parties and having nothing to wear.

Instead of cutting out Hanukkah shapes and pasting them on sweaters she found at the local Goodwill store, she got savvy and customized her own designs.

Agiman launched Geltfiend in August and has since sold more than 1,000 sweaters for between $60 and $65 a pop.

Geltfiend isn’t the only business reaping the benefits of this popular trend. Rag-o-Rama is advertising “funky holiday sweaters” on its Facebook page, and Corona recently doled out $1,000 to the winner of an ugly sweater contest at the Cheetah nightclub.

Parrish and her friends decided to turn their party into a toy benefit for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite.

It was a way to thank the hospital for taking such good care of Parrish’s older sister Amanda, who last Christmas left the hospital with a red bag filled with donated toys and books.

Still for some, donning an “ugly sweater” is a tradition during the holiday season.

Consider Carol Thornton, a human resources manager from Suwanee. She has collected more than 30 sweaters over the years.

“I love them,” Thornton said. “I love Christmas.”

And so on the first day of December until Christmas, she enthusiastically begins her sweater parade.

“I’m one of those obnoxious people people tweet about, and I’m OK with that,” Thornton said. “My husband thinks they’re adorable.”