You Can Blame Canada for the Rise of the Ugly Christmas Sweater

Maybe I'm dating myself a bit here, but I remember a time, way back in the 1980s, when ugly Christmas sweaters were just called Christmas sweaters. I never owned one of these, as I'm pretty sure that the idea of a sweater that could only be worn a few times a year would've been an offense to my mother's highly practical sensibilities, but I remember them in the women's section at JCPenney, and I remember my elementary school teachers wearing them, joyfully and unironically. Fast-forward 20 years...