Christmas Sweaters

           Around this time of year, America loves to see one thing: ugly Christmas sweaters.  Christmas sweaters come in all shapes, sizes, and designs.  The picture above is an image taken from socialitelife.com and it is a true representation of how ugly and gaudy these sweaters can get.  I will analyze the design of the typical homemade Christmas sweater (even though there is no typical type).

            First, a Christmas sweater is usually made by starting off with a blank, solid color sweater purchased from a store of Goodwill.  The sweater is usually a heavy/durable cotton material that can support added weight.  People also like to pick sweaters based on a yearly color theme that they might have.  It may seem to the unknowledgeable person that after a sweater is obtained, the maker gets a decorated Christmas tree and dumps all of its contents onto the sweater.  This is slightly inaccurate; there is actually an art to this.  A second color made of some cut out fabric from an old t-shirt or anything laying around the house is first stapled to the sweater to usually create snow or a setting of some sort.  Sometimes, this stapled fabric will make a reindeer or snowman. 

The next step is huge.  Actual decorations can be added to start creating one’s ideal Christmas figure like a snowman, reindeer, gingerbread house, Christmas tree, etc.  One’s sweater can also have all of those things just listed like the one above.  There is usually a step that involves adding fuzzy streamers or beaded necklaces.  These items are typically added using a hot glue gun.  The hot glue gun, staples, and excessive decorations make it so that the Christmas sweater is not washable in the washing machine unless it is dissembled.

Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) can be highly dangerous on Christmas sweater.  The idea is super cool because one is literally always glowing with holiday cheer, but it comes at a price.  There are many fire hazards when wearing LEDs that are plugged into a portable battery or run on an internal battery.  The heat emitting off of the bulbs could ignite or melt many of the loose hanging or loosely wound fabrics on the sweater, resulting in a SUPER CHRISTMAS EXPLOSION (or just immediate stop, drop, and rolling)!!