Ode to My Ugly Christmas Sweater

My ugly Christmas sweater was knitted by my great-aunt Phyllis in 1991. It has a reindeer with a pom-pom nose, three-dimensional snowflakes, and a strip of tinsel sewn along the collar that sheds like a cat.

I wore it to my office party as a joke. I won the ugly sweater contest by a landslide. My coworkers asked where I'd bought it, and when I told them Aunt Phyllis made it, they wanted her autograph.

I called her to tell her. She's ninety-three now and laughed so hard she started coughing. "That sweater was supposed to be elegant!" she said.

She asked me to send a photo. I sent her a picture of the entire office, all of us crowded around me, giving her a thumbs-up. She told me she printed it and stuck it on her refrigerator. She's knitting me another one for next year. She says it will be "even more elegant."