Ugly Sweater Party! Get your gag reflex on!

How do these theme parties get started? There are 80's parties, Star Wars appreciation shin-digs, Redneck "I heart Billy Ray Cyrus" bashes, and anything else you can put on an Evite. The wife and I went to an ugly sweater party this weekend and it was all the rage. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but as you can tell from the pictures above, the eye that is beholding my 'beauty' is bubbling with a burning infection. I apologize if they fill you with a broken, 'humanity is lost' emptiness and provoke you to lose your religion. They are real and raw. We went to the local thrift/consignment/bring out your dead/Salvation Army store to pick up those gems and were so glad that we had beat the rush for such items. Looking for that truly ugly, wretched clothing piece is as difficult as finding amazing couture in a highend place. One has to find a certain 'peacock' wow affect that makes the item standout from the rest of the ugly ducklings. It is that unattainable blend of terribly conceived designs, puke like color schemes, and absurdly ornate dressings that induces the dry heaving in onlookers but a deeply haunting satisfaction in the wearer. I do not know if I achieved that repulsive nirvana with the items above, but I think it was a great effort, especially with the Cincinatti Bengals themed mess that was so tight on me that I could not physically bring down my arms. The funny thing is that when we went to the party, we were greeted by all these ugly sweaters but they were ugly, 'Christmas-themed" sweaters! When we took our coats off, people looked at us in their blinking lights sweaters and their jingle bell outfits and shook their heads in disgust. I did not think that one could be so shamed at such a party but it turns out we were both ugly and illiterate as we were the only ones who misread the Evite. Let me tell you though, we wore that Shame boldly, with a capital 'S' and all the bengal stripes in the world could not blot out our leper status. Fortunately the booze, (ahh the sweet booze) makes everyone beautiful, so to speak and we even got a bag of coal (really! a legit bag of coal) as a prize for completely misunderstanding the whole concept of the party. So the sweaters look ugly now, but as this recession deepens and gets worse, these sweaters might get enveloped into my regular fashion rotation. These are 'business casual', right?