Ugly Sweaters
Laura Fischer
To celebrate the start of its winter break, Central Valley High School had decided to hold its first "Ugly Sweater" 5K-run in place of its traditional holiday choral program. Spectators and participants alike dressed in the gaudiest Christmas sweaters and shirts they could find, and everyone brought a wrapped new toy or bag of canned goods for a local charity to distribute to the needy the next day.Jenny was just past 50 years old and knew she wasn't athletic enough to compete, so she had helped organize the race and had volunteered to hand out bottles of water to the runners instead. Anxiously she scanned the faces of the students and teachers streaming past, looking for her friend Joanne. Joanne was nearly 50 herself and had no business exerting herself so strenuously Jenny felt. But Joanne had been athletic in her youth and was confident she could finish. She insisted it would be fun, and there was nothing Jenny could do to dissuade her. Most of the crowd in the colorful sweaters had already passed the checkpoint, and Joanne was still nowhere to be seen. What if she had fallen or had a heart attack, Jenny worried. Surely she should have been here by now.
Jenny thought back to when the two had first met. She had been teaching art at the school for a few years when the gym teacher left on maternity leave. Joanne was hired that December to take her place. She immediately felt a bond with her new co-worker because of the gorgeous holiday sweater she was wearing. Jenny was wearing a holiday sweater herself, the same one she had chosen to wear to the race today in fact. Jenny loved holidays and especially Christmas because of her memories of happy gatherings with her large fun-loving family. Joanne embraced the holidays to fill the void left by an unhappy childhood in a single-parent family that didn't celebrate any special times. Each immediately recognized a kindred spirit in the other, and their shared love of the holidays and especially of Christmas was the glue that bound their friendship together.
The colorful shirts were called holiday sweaters, not ugly sweaters, in those days. The early ones were fairly conservative, mostly red or green plaids with fir trees or snow flakes knit into the pattern. But over the years the designs morphed into a riotous display of all things Christmas: jolly Santas and frosty snowmen, jingling sleigh bells and trees with blinking lights, red nosed reindeer and cuddly kittens peeking out of Christmas stockings. Teachers, especially the older women, loved dressing up in the sparkling holiday sweaters each December, seemingly unaware that their students laughed at their kitschy clothing behind their backs.
But fashions change, and a decade or so later, when holiday sweaters had disappeared from the department stores, a new generation of students discovered their parent's and grandparent's cast-offs in the thrift stores, and ugly sweater parties became all the rage for the teens. Now those parties were preceded by 5K-runs where everybody raced in the craziest sweater they could find before celebrating the festivities. Ironically, the old maid teachers who had once been laughed at by their students for their outrageous outfits were now admired for helping organize the runs and being in tune with the latest teen fashion.
Jenny was now really worried. The last of the runners had passed the checkpoint, and still she hadn't seen Joanne. Finally she spied a group of stragglers who had given up running and were walking the last stage of the race. There was Joanne, limping slightly but smiling and determined to make it to the end. Relieved, Jenny ran to her friend and gave her a congratulatory hug, proud of her achievement. With beaming smiles and heads held high, the two crossed the finish line hand in hand to the cheers of the crowd of students and former students urging them on.
What fun that was, Jenny and Joanne both thought. They wondered what they could do next that would be even more fun. They looked at each other and, thinking of the law that had just been enacted, they knew.
The invitations were printed. The hall was lavishly decorated with flowers and Christmas greenery and brightly colored ornaments. A many-tiered cake topped with two frosty snow-ladies holding hands overlooked long tables laden with delicious holiday treats. Hundred of well-wishers, most wearing the requested holiday sweaters, filled the pews flanking the aisle leading to the altar.
The Christmas music started, and two glowing brides in white satin topped with sweater vests of knitted snow flakes and crimson hearts slowly made their way to where the minister awaited - the first same-sex couple to be married at the first ugly sweater wedding!
