Festive Christmas Sweater Party

It’s become a bit of a tradition to go to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants with a group of our friends in December and sort of celebrate our birthdays together–3 of us girls have birthdays this month–and we always have a great time.

This year did not disappoint.

We decided to go with a theme of Festive/Cheesy Christmas Sweater Party and we hit the town in all our finery. I took it upon myself to create a “work of art” for Jaden to wear, and my parents got all crafty and inventive and surprised me with the best over-the-top Christmas delight I’ve ever seen. As we arrived at the restaurant the valet commented “Nice sweater” to Jaden. It was a sign of good things to come. I bet you are waiting to see our outfits. Don’t worry, they’re coming.

Dinner was delicious and then we went to Mark and Mary’s house for dessert and what turned into a crazy hilarious photo session. Get settled in for a cold winter’s night, because this’ll take awhile. No, really.

The Couples:

Jaden and Brooke–I’ll go into more detail about our look later.

Tucker and Julie: Love the plaid vest with blanket stitching, mock turtleneck with an abundance of darling Christmas gifts as the pattern, Christmas light jewelry. And the manliness of red “vintage” trousers complete with a vest and a tie with Santa’s cute little face peeking out from under the vest. What a special couple, or one could say, even scholarly.

Kris and Kecia: Awww, these guys looked too cute for words. Kecia’s snowpeople and Christmas light sweater was so jolly (and the black so slimming!), coordinating so well with the green and white stripes and crisp red Santa hat Kris was sporting. Santa wouldn’t hesitate to bring gifts aplenty to these two dears.

Mark and Mary: Bah Humbug perfectly reflects Mark’s entire demeanor, a well suited choice for him. Perhaps he was one of the reindeer who wouldn’t let poor Rudolph join in any of those games we hear about so often. And Mary is quite the opposite of Bah Humbug in every way–with her maternal glow highlighted by the berry red patchwork hominess of her sweater. Just makes you feel all cozy.

Now we’ll talk about Jaden and his special sweater, designed by me and inspired by Cousin Eddie:

Jaden and his Christmas cat sweater.

Let’s discuss the sweater in more glorious detail.

I found a shapeless turtleneck in a hideous shade of red, and cut it into a dickie that could be seen through the light cream sweater. This is so stylish, people. Then, my favorite part of all, through sheer luck I found a red towel with this stuffed cat head and a Christmasy bow and patch. I cut the whole thing off the towel and hot glued it to the sweater. CLASSY. A Stuffed Christmas Cat Head Sweater with coordinating dickie turtleneck. It was the perfect touch. Don’t be too surprised if you see this look copied on the red carpets during award season coming up.

Thanks to Mark for capturing my sweet/psychotic moves and showing off my sweatshirt.

The credit for this creation goes to my dear mom. She took a delightful teddy bear snowshowing adventure and turned it into a horrifying gaudy holiday wonderland.

Notice the details–

My dad rigged real Christmas lights poking through the sweatshirt, with a battery pack hidden inside, and a tiny lightswitch so I could turn them on and off at my fancy!

I’m telling you, my parents went above and beyond the call of duty on this one. Genius. It will be passed on through the generations of our posterity. This was a HEAVY, old, faded, huge, bulky sweatshirt that added on at least 50 pounds. Not pretty. But it was worth it.

More photos of the festivities:

I couldn’t stop petting the cute little cat.

Posing at the tree.

Good times with good buddies.

Julie chuckling and guffawing at a silly joke. Or something.

The group shots–should we send this as a group effort Christmas card???

Where’s Kecia???? We lost Kecia in all the commotion. Don’t worry, we found her later.

Wow, we had SUCH a fun time. I’m still laughing about it. Can’t wait until next year. My kids will be so proud of me one day.