The ugly-holiday-sweater party, once the inside purview of consciously ironic youth, finally has joined the public domain.
At the opening-night party celebrating the Arvada Center’s current staging of “A Christmas Carol,” cast and crew showed up in sweaters and vests that were painfully merry and bright.
Instead of “black tie,” two upcoming fundraisers recommend wearing “ugly holiday sweaters” and “Christmas sweaters only your grandma would appreciate.”
A private party staged by Greg Vickers, Streeter McClure and some other names familiar from social notes columns are going one step further. Their invitations specify “You must be wearing an Xmas Sweater to get in the door — the uglier, the better!”
This is not to say that ugly-holiday-sweater parties have aged out of their appeal, though it’s possible that hipsters will need to find an alternative tradition to mock.
The Rink at Belmar won’t be holding its annual holiday sweater competition this year; “We’re giving it a break,” said a spokesman.
Neither will the Ugly Christmas Sweater Run, a tradition in quirky Manitou Springs, postponed until December 2011 due to what the event website describes as “unforeseen and unfortunate circumstances.”
But other hosts are quick to pick up the slack, sometimes jumping the gun. The Aspen Brewing Co. held its ugly-holiday-sweater pub crawl in October, breaking the tacit rule limiting these parties to the period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. About 50 people showed up in aggressively decorated sweaters, said Aspen Brewing Co. owner Brad Velahey.
Similarly, On Havana Street, an Aurora business improvement districts organization, held its ugly-holiday-sweater party the week before Thanksgiving.
One advantage of that timing, noted Summit Steak House manager Kim Dammer, is the holiday sweater displays at local thrift stores hadn’t been picked over yet. She chose a sweater teeming with figure skaters from a rack replete with garments featuring “lots of snowmen, Christmas trees, holly leaves and ornaments.”
Not to worry: There are still plenty of heavily decorated sweaters and sweat shirts to choose from — the Longmont- based business specializes in tacky and naughty Christmas sweaters that start at $50 — and more opportunities to show them off.
Among the first: the Mile High Bowl Ugly Sweater Holiday Party, to be held Saturday at the Blake Street Tavern.
Blake Street Tavern also hosts the Dec. 11 Christmas Sweater Party, a toy drive co-hosted by Children’s Hospital and the cystic fibrosis organization Breathe In.
“These parties are a big holiday trend,” says Blake Street Tavern manager Shelley Majeres.
“Last year, we had a group who stopped by after they’d been at an ugly-Christmas- sweater party. One of the girls had the ugliest one — long yellow yarn hanging off one sleeve, like hair, and a big face on the front with a Santa hat.”
Want to join the fun? Brianna Firestone, a cast member of “A Christmas Carol,” recommends scouting thrift stores for the best bargains. She found an eye-catching sweater — “That’s a nice way of putting it,” she said — for $12 at a Goodwill store. It still had the original department store tags.
“Someone paid $58 for it before whoever got it as a gift donated it to Goodwill,” she said.
Not surprisingly, the “Christmas Carol” cast and crew demonstrated a flair for locating exceptionally peppy sweaters. Artistic producer Rod A. Lansberry, who didn’t know about the opening-night party’s theme, was stymied when he first arrived.
“I saw a couple of those sweaters, but when I kept seeing more of them, I thought, ‘Did all of you lose any sense of taste all at once?’ ” he said.
Claire Martin: 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com
