Garish good fun

Once relegated to grandma's closet, gaudy holiday sweaters have gotten sort of hip. Just check eBay.

Friends wearing holiday sweaters gather in South Boston for a party. (Essdras M Suarez/Globe Staff)

DORCHESTER - The holiday party had all the trappings of a spirited yuletide celebration - a high-definition fire burning brightly on the plasma television in the corner, a big tray of green and red Jell-O shots passed around the room by a smiling host. But there was something slightly amiss about the wardrobe that this group of 20-somethings had chosen for their fete. It looked as if partygoers raided their moms' closets for holiday sweaters. The truth is, many of them did.

It's the Christmas season's hottest trend: the tacky holiday sweater party.

"People are more friendly when they get together at an ugly holiday sweater party," says Adam Peck, who was hosting a Saturday night soiree with his roommate Jared Pitts. "It's easier to talk to people because everyone is a little goofier in their ugly sweater."

The festive holiday sweater, once restricted to mom's or grandma's closet, has found fans among young revelers who are looking for a new way to celebrate the holiday. Over the past few years, the ugly sweater holiday party has grown like an over-fertilized poinsettia, with friends trying to out-shine one another in the most over-the-top knits they can get their hands on. Companies are hosting ugly holiday sweater parties in conference rooms, friends are gathering for sweater pub crawls, bars are cashing in on the trend, and nonprofits are holding holiday ugly sweater fund-raisers. Once a symbol of a wholesome holiday, the Christmas sweater has gone subversive and hip.

At Peck and Pitts's party, guests were proudly displaying a selection of over-embellished reindeer, snowman, and teddy bear sweaters while playing a drinking game in the living room.

"Last year was the first time I had heard about an ugly sweater party," says Matt Swain, one of Peck's co-workers, who was in the running for ugliest sweater thanks to the woman's cardigan he found at a secondhand store and covered with holiday brooches picked up on sale at Kohl's. He completed his ugly sweater ensemble with a holiday print turtleneck and Christmas-themed socks. "But it's funny how much it's caught on this year. This year everybody seems to be having a holiday sweater party."

Proof of the trend can easily be tracked at the online auction site eBay. According to eBay style director Constance White, holiday sweater sales have skyrocketed, with more than 1,600 holiday sweaters being auctioned off last week alone. But it is the search criteria that reveals what is really happening. The most popular holiday sweater searches are for "tacky holiday sweaters" and "ugly" or "ugliest holiday sweater." The homeliest of the bunch, those with angry reindeer or lots of faux gemstones, wind up with more than 40 bids and can sell for more than $100.

"Last year it was easy to find these on eBay," Peck says while handing snowflake sweaters to two guests who arrived to his party in non-festive garb. "This year people were bidding on them like crazy. The good ones were going fast."

It needs to be pointed out that the holiday sweater now has two distinct fan clubs. There are those who are embracing the over-the-top holiday sweaters for ironic parties and pub crawls. And then there's the holiday sweater's core audience, those women who wear their more subdued and tasteful sweaters for one month out of the year to show their holiday spirit. It's these women - and a few holly jolly gents - who have turned the holiday sweater into a $150 million a year industry. That's a lot of crocheted snowmen.

"The holiday sweater represents 25 percent of all sweaters that are given as a holiday gift," says Marshal Cohen, chief analyst at the NPD Group, a retail market research company. "But the majority of holiday motif sweaters are self-purchased. It's a huge product. Think about it, they're prominently placed at a time of the year when people are in a spending mood."

At a performance of "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" at the Citi Performing Arts Center Wang Theatre last week, many of the holiday sweater-wearing ladies in the audience were unaware that they were attired in pullovers and cardigans that could fetch a healthy profit on eBay.

"I have gotten teased about my holiday sweaters," says Darlene Costello of Fitchburg, who was wearing her favorite fluffy snowman sweater. "My kids have told me that I go a little overboard. But people also stop to tell me that they like my sweaters."

No matter how festive, Costello's sweater would most likely have been deemed too tasteful by the folks who were celebrating in their ugly holiday sweaters across the city last weekend. In South Boston, Mike Dembro and more than a dozen friends pulled on their ugly holiday sweaters and went on a pub crawl Friday night to celebrate a friend's birthday.

"Who doesn't love a good ugly holiday sweater?" Dembro says. "It's funny how much it's caught on this year. There isn't a whole lot you can do at the holidays that isn't traditional and expected. So two years ago we decided to go the over-the-top route and have a sweater party. Everybody loved it."

Leslie Hall, a singer/performance artist who has collected more than 400 gem-studded sweaters, says it makes sense that the ugly holiday sweater is now rising to prominence.

"It's a matter of science," she says. "As the stylish people of the 1980s needed more room for baby cribs and pool tables, they emptied their closets and tossed these beauties out to Goodwill and the Salvation Army. To see these sweaters in the thrift store is like walking though the pound and seeing a sad puppy who only wants to cuddle and go with you to a party for drinks and kisses. It was only a matter of time before it became a competitive party game."

Not only do sweater parties give local hams such as nurses Ken Shastany and Daniel Johnson a chance to shine at company Christmas parties, the gatherings give a generation an opportunity to rebel against a holiday icon. There isn't much you can do when you're stuck with fruitcake, but a bad holiday sweater can offer immediate entertainment value.

"Part of it is this rejection of a holiday tradition," says Jennifer Parr, who organized an ugly sweater party at her market research firm last year. "We're making fun of it, but at the same time, we're secretly liking it. It's the article of clothing that you love to hate."

Christopher Muther can be reached at muther@globe.com.