December 20·Every year

National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day

The third Friday of December has been Ugly Christmas Sweater Day since 2011, when the idea spread through social media and office party culture simultaneously. The deliberately hideous knitwear dates to the 1950s novelty market; its ironic revival began in Vancouver in 2002 with an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party. The market for intentionally ugly sweaters is now a $10 billion industry.

Category: Silly
Observed in: United StatesUnited KingdomCanadaAustraliaIreland

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Notable · 2007

Pablo Picasso's Portrait of Suzanne Bloch was stolen from the São Paulo Museum of Art before being recovered about three weeks later.

2024Six people are killed and over 200 are injured when an anti-Islam activist drives a car into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany.
2024A mass stabbing occurs in a primary school in Zagreb, Croatia, in which a 7-year-old pupil is killed and six more are injured by a knife-wielding 19-year-old male.
2022A Vega C rocket carrying two Pléiades Neo satellites fails after liftoff.