Fortunately, it’s not a problem for me, because I’ve never owned an ugly Christmas sweater. Although, according to my wife after we got engaged, every item in my closet was butt-ugly and needed to have a stake driven through its heart so it would never come to life again.
I didn’t mind losing the Nehru jacket, bell bottoms and polyester sport coat. But I hated saying goodbye to the authentic Cincinnati Bengals jersey that had been left behind in1969 by an authentic Cincinnati Bengals running back named “Wondrous” Warren McVea, after he had been traded for a kicker named Horst Muhlmann. Not to mention the Jiffy Lube shirt with my named stitched above the pocket, which I owned for reasons I would explain if I could remember what they were. (In my defense, I already had agreed not to wear it for our wedding.)
Given this sartorial history, it’s probably a miracle that I never bought in to what has been termed “an essential part of the holidays, ubiquitous as Christmas lights and wrapping paper.” The closest I’ve come to an ugly Christmas sweater is a jersey I received this month for making a deposit at our local blood bank. It’s not necessarily ugly, but charitably could be declared “a bit homely.”)
But, for the estimated 18 percent of Americans who have bought in to the fad, here’s an important reminder based on a story that first appeared in The Daily Wire in 2019 under the headline:
‘Your Ugly Christmas Sweater Is Killing The Planet, Experts Say’
“An environmental group in the United Kingdom wants you to think twice about purchasing and wearing an ‘ugly Christmas sweater’ this year,” it reported, “because the sweaters, which usually feature decorations made from plastic and metallic fibers, are contributing to the spread of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans and killing off seafaring wildlife.”
So you can’t just throw it away without risking a hammering on your front door from the environmental police. Because according to Hubbub, an environmental organization based in England, up to 95 percent of ugly Christmas sweaters contain plastic, meaning they can’t be recycled.
You could wash it and save it for next year. But that would shed 730,000 microfibers into your washing machine, “which eventually would make their way to bodies of water, clogging and polluting them.”
Maybe your best hope is to pass it off to a friend, or, even more satisfying, to an enemy.
Then you can focus on what to do with that fruitcake.
Contact this columnist at dlstew_2000@yahoo.com.
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