Holiday sweaters

OK, I have been up all night and so this is one topic I have to get off my chest before going back to bed.

Holiday Sweaters.

I teach, and every year at this time the holiday sweaters come out. Like the ducks and bunny sweaters kindergarten teachers wear at Easter, the holiday sweaters proliferate. I pass colleagues wearing Frosty, Rudolph, and other assorted icons in the hallways. The sweaters are embroidered, applique'd, top stitch, sequined, crocheted, quilted, any manner of craftwork. Its as if our hallways were suddenly transformed into a cruise ship to the North Pole and Christmas resort wear is de riqeur. Looking like pincushions with so much spangle, gilt and beading, the sweaters and their occupants make fun of the current vogue for embellishment in clothing. Christmas sweaters have been doing this for years.

And some of the sweaters are years old. Because they never wear out. You only wear them for about two weeks a year, and not daily. So when the ornaments come out, in some atavistic ritual of the closets, so do the sweaters.

I think I want one and then I think again.

I have tried. Strolling in TJMaxx the other day, I glanced at them. No, the snowmen were not placed on my hips where I would want them. Ditto the cut out felt Christmas trees, arranged just at my bra line. I do not need tree bras, however implied. A large reindeer on my back with a red nose over my scapula is not the anatomy I wish to highlight.

But I did want to fit in, to be a pal, to have fun too. Was I too snotty? Have I missed the meaning of this group clubwear? Putting on my Pendleton tweed blazer over my burgandy velvet top, I added some jewelry. I have a large silver Crusader's cross, my Mom's from a trip to Jerusalem. I put that on and looked like an Episcopal minister. I exchanged it for a museum repro of a Sythian stag, thinking it might look like a reindeer. I looked like a game warden. So I gave up, took off the blazer, threw on a sparkly ice blue turtleneck and beaded Turkish scarf. I looked like me.

And, why don't the men wear the sweaters? They have Christmas ties. No comment, for they too are immortal, and I have seen all the vogues over the years. Good for them.

I'm not a fashion Scrooge, I just think too much about them. I chirp, "Cute Sweater!" and God knows, we need some fun in our halls because most of the kids are all in black to be different and lurching around in various stages of Goth or Sport.

Yet I wonder, who is making these? I know, lots of women and children in countries which do not celebrate Christmas as a primary religious holiday. The sweaters are made in Asia and India...and I wonder what these Buddhists or Moslems or Hindus think sewing on felt snowmen in 110 degree heat. Or, the reindeer where cattle may be sacred. Or trees where fuel is scarce. You see, I think too much about it, they are just working for a needed job. And yet, I do think about Chinese painting Christmas ornaments, embroidering angels and holly, sometimes under work conditions which are less than jolly.

And these are only secular images on the sweaters, even if embroidered by non-Christians. I do not live where we have a large Jewish population so I do not know if there are Hanukkah sweaters. But I don't think so. There are no sweaters with Jerusalem on them, the icons of Mohammedism, or Hinduism, no blue Krishnas with appliqued Gopis. And, there are no sequined Jesus or Wise Men either. Frosty and Rudolph reign.

So, there is Christmas, the creche', happy angels and baby Jesus on Advent calendars and ornaments. And there is the Frosty-Rudolph Christmas popularized by the blow-up lawn ornaments, and the sweaters which make even the slimmest look blown up. Everyone is trying to have fun, to bring a bit of ornamental bling to their wardrobes and that is fine. It's just not me, and once again I am the voyeur, watching the bling stroll by.

Until next year when the sweaters rise again like phoenixes.