Love From Your Elderly Aunt

Here's what I love about Christmas clothing: It is festive. It is colorful. It is seasonally appropriate. It never wears out. (Indeed, since it's only worn once or twice a year, Christmas gear is the "Wonderful One-Hoss Shay" of the clothing world.)

Here's what I hate about Christmas clothing: Apparently it is TOTALLY, EYE-ROLLINGLY, APPALLINGLY un-chic.

Well, huh.

This week my cool friends (and sons) on the internet have been attending Ugly Christmas Sweater parties. An entire seasonal industry has grown up around seasonal clothing if you believe NPR (and really, who doesn't?) and apparently the only ones of us who wear such stuff un-ironically are the seriously fashion-impaired and elderly great-aunts.

I offer the photo that illustrates today's post as proof that I belong in the first category. You see the 15-year-old velvet vest festooned with beaded poisettias, and the holly-berry mock turtleneck. You may not see the candy cane earrings, but I assure you they are there. (Also, you see that I put on not one speck of lipstick before posting my picture to the World Wide Web.Please disregard that part.)

As for the second category--hey! I am great-aunt to 16! And in my mind, great-aunts are the ones bring the rum-balls to the Christmas feast and thanks to their advanced age get go through the buffet lines first. I can do those things, too.

So merry Christmas to you whippersnappers, with your leggings and hair feathers. I'll keep rocking the velvet and poisettias. As an elderly great-aunt, it's only appropriate.