The ‘Ugly’ Christmas Sweater

"We are shaped and fashioned by what we love" –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

Embracing the UG!

I have a pretty basic wardrobe. Black shirts, black sweaters, jeans, gray & black scarves & black boots. I don’t know what has trapped me in this dark existence. Maybe it’s the many years I have been overweight (black covers a multitude of sins... er... uh... pounds) or maybe it’s my strong inner desire NOT to call attention to myself... at any cost. I do so love to lurk in the background.

Anyhoo… this year the library where I work & our beloved church family decided to have an “Ugly” Christmas Sweater day. Some people were offended as they had only to visit their closet & “pick one”. Since I am so obviously color & festively challenged, I headed off to our local second hand shop to pick out my fabulously “ugly” sweater. I had the most amazing time. There were, after all, a plethora of brightly colored, extraordinarily tacky, beautifully bedazzled, jingle bell embellished masterpieces to choose from.  Finally I found the perfect one for me. Understated yet ferociously Christmasy. I practically ran to my car, clutching my bag to my chest & cackling... rather disturbingly. Mwhahahahahahahaha…

Once I arrived home, I began to assemble my outfit. First came the black leggings & scarf… then big thick gray socks & my snow boots & to top it all off a bright red Santa hat for my head.

Every day for a week, I passed by my ensemble hanging on the back of my bedroom door & wrung my hands with glee...  

Startlingly, the more & more I looked at it, the more & more I began to love it.

This morning when I finally ‘donned my gay apparel’, I felt something that rarely happens in my world... I was deeply in love with my sweater. It is fabulous! & even better... it makes me FEEL fabulous!

I will NEVER… read my words… NEVER… snicker behind my hand at a tacky Christmas sweater again! Maybe die hard Christmas sweater wearing people have had it right all along.

I was so overcome with Christmas joy, that I did a little dance into the living room & did a little prance past my husband who peered over his coffee cup & raised his eyebrows. Yes people! He knows, what I know… I am especially fabulous today!

As I danced & pranced the whole way to work, it occurred to me. THIS is what Christmas is all about.

Here’s what I mean…  

Before Jesus, the world was trapped in sin & darkness... much like my plain aka boring wardrobe. But the gift of HIS miraculous birth allows us to break free of all the gloom & sadness that binds us. We can choose instead to throw off those old, black, filthy rags of sin & put on the new, bright, clean, beautiful remnants of grace. Oh how marvelous! Oh how wonderful! Oh how glorious! Oh how beautiful the ‘Ugly’ Christmas Sweater! 

Colossians 3 says it perfectly... 

 

"Don't lie to one another. 

You’re done with that old life. 

It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. 

Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. 

Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. 

All the old fashions are now obsolete. 

Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. 

From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ."

  –Colossians 3:9-11 (the Message) 

So... Embrace the UG! Oh &