And We Were Fabulous, Fabulous…
It’s the week before Christmas as I write this column. I don’t have a single present wrapped and my spouse cringes every time he sees a mail, FedEx, UPS or Amazon Prime delivery truck pull into our driveway. The Homestead is bedecked in holiday décor and for the first time ever in our 40 years of marriage, the Christmas tree was up on Thanksgiving night, thanks to V.
My son Dan and his girlfriend V hosted an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party last weekend. Dan challenged us to wear the ugliest sweater and my reply was, “Oh, it’s on like Donkey Kong!” The gauntlet had been thrown and I accepted that challenge. I am known amongst our family and friends for being highly inappropriate at times - so I had to rein myself in and not purchase some very “Rated R” sweaters. I finally settled on a Gnome sweater and a skirt with lights and a big red Cindy Lou Who-like bow for myself. I went full on trashy for my spouse, as you can see from the photo below. I topped off his attire with a Santa hat with lights, motion and some very obnoxious singing.
We arrived at V’s apartment and realized that Dan and V were in it to win it – V had a dinosaur sweater and Dan had donned a bear sweater with a pocket that held a beverage. Other guests soon arrived, one wearing Darth Vader sweater. Another guest had on a knitted sweater vest that was very retro. I kept staring at her, probably making her feel very uncomfortable and then I blurted out, “Now I know where I have seen that vest before! I had one like that back in the 90s!” She laughed and replied that she had borrowed it from her Aunt.
Guys, when I wore that sweater vest back in the 1990s, it wasn’t to go to an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party…. I wore it because I thought that I was very fashionable and stylish…
I texted my friend Tina the next day and asked her if she still had the photo of the two of us working at the local elementary school’s PTAE Christmas Shop. She was immediately suspicious and questioned why I wanted to know. “You’re on deadline, Pamela,” she said. “Why do you want that photo? What do you plan on doing this time to embarrass me?”
“Oh Tina, Tina, Tina – girlfriend, I am not going to embarrass YOU – I am going to embarrass US!” was my reply.
After much cajoling and threats, Tina finally acquiesced and sent me the photo. Here we are in all of our permed hair glory. I left my over-sized eyeglasses at home that day. Tina and I actually had a collection of Christmas sweaters, shirts, and sweatshirts. We even had matching Nutcracker sweaters in powder blue and leggings with the foot stirrups, which we wore when we took the kids to see Disney On Ice on a bus trip. We thought we looked stunning. We felt marvelous and fabulous.
Tina and I can giggle now at our attire and our hair and eyeglasses (although I must confess to still wearing holiday shirts, sweaters, and sweatshirts – I have a Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer shirt that I wore just last week). We marveled at how skinny we were back then – and how, back in the 1990s, we were complaining that we had gained weight from when we were teenagers and in our 20s.
Steve ended up winning the contest at Dan and V’s party – nothing screams the holiday like a drunk Santa sweater with tattoos, apparently. Steve and I also swapped headpieces for the photo. Oh, I know that all of you will look at these photos and chuckle and snort and say, “Man, what were these two old people thinking when they put those sweaters and hats on? Don’t they realize how ridiculous that they look?”
But deep down in my soul, I am thinking… “We are fabulous, fabulous!”