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Madame Tussauds’ unveils this year’s hottest Christmas jumper
Madame Tussauds’ unveils this year’s hottest Christmas jumper. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA
Madame Tussauds’ unveils this year’s hottest Christmas jumper. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Why a Christmas jumper isn’t just for Christmas Day

This article is more than 6 years old
I understand the urge to splurge on fresh festive knitwear every year. But it’s a wasteful habit that should come with an environmental elf warning

I will admit to owning three Christmas jumpers. There’s the chunky, cheery red one, featuring two penguins holding hands on an iceberg, as if they’re on a romantic festive avian break instead of trying to survive a potentially perilous situation. There’s the one I bought last year, which doesn’t feature any traditional motifs but is made of gold Lurex – undeniably festive but also acceptable in February and November. Then there’s the one I’m currently wearing, which I bought in a weak, impulsive moment last week, and features a sequinned dachshund wearing a Santa hat.

So I can’t defend the practice, but I can understand the urge to buy multiple jumpers. After all, the secular celebration of Christmas revolves around finding and enjoying all things bright and cosy when the world feels especially dark, dank and dreary. If you have the impulse and the disposable income, why not buy one?

Well, as always, our fun comes at a considerable environmental cost. The environmental charity Hubbub has found that last year, one in four of the Christmas jumpers purchased were worn once and then thrown away. One in three under-35s admitted to buying a new Christmas jumper every year, with 24% of consumers saying they didn’t want to be seen in the same jumper as last year, and 29% saying the jumpers are “so cheap” they might as well buy a new one.

Admittedly, if you’ve just found a picture of yourself from 2016 clutching your fifth Cointreau while wearing a sweater emblazoned with the slogan “I touch my elf” you might be filled with an urge to find and burn the garment, and then burn the rest of your wardrobe for good luck before granting a relative with the power of attorney in order to save you from any future bad decisions. However, we have to take responsibility for our actions as consumers, even if we’re not ready to take responsibility for our terrible taste. (Unless you’re Hyde Park junior school, in Plymouth, and accidentally sent out a newsletter featuring a jumper that depicts four reindeer engaged in an intimate act. When that happens, you have to admit that your jumper selection skills need work.)

One sensible, practical and affordable solution is to eschew the new – or rather, choose a jumper that’s new only to you. With 35% of people surveyed saying they wore their Christmas jumper only once, charity shops across the land should be absolutely packed with knitwear covered in galloping reindeer and pudding puns. If you’re craving a jumper fix, it should be easy to recycle someone else’s, and give some money to a good cause, which is much more Christmassy than giving it to a department store.

If you’ve got a jumper you’ll never wear again but haven’t donated because it’s a bit embarrassing, simply sponge the sprout stains off and claim you’re handing it in on behalf of your horrible boss, childhood bully or Donald Trump.

Alternatively, if you have jumper-loving, non-judgmental friends, you could host an amnesty jumper swap shop. Perhaps this could be an alternative to secret Santa – instead of spending £5 on a gift that your friend or colleague almost certainly does not want, you could all exchange old jumpers you don’t want with each other instead. The best part of this plan is that Christmas jumpers don’t really suit anyone, so it’s a democratic exercise. You can all look bobbly and shapeless together!

I worry that needless consumerism has forced us all to forget the true meaning of Christmas jumpers. Until recently, our traditional festive knitwear came from kindly relatives, who had spent months knitting wonky Alpine patterns with scratchy wool. They were aesthetically distressing labours of love, and we had to wear them for at least 12 hours after we’d ripped off the wrapping paper. We wouldn’t dream of throwing them away, even though we wouldn’t dream of wearing them when we weren’t in our granny’s eyeline either. These remind us of a time when we had less, and perhaps what we owned meant more to us. Consumer choice is an exciting thing, and it’s made our lives better in many ways. But, as with advocaat, a little goes a long, long way.

We live in an era of great privilege, when a Christmas jumper can be anything we want it to be – a fine-gauge knit with an instarsia Die Hard quote, an excuse for a big-ticket Bella Freud splurge, or something that has its own battery pack and a more intricate lighting system than the rest of your house. With great power, electrical or otherwise, comes great responsibility. A Christmas jumper doesn’t have to just be for Christmas jumper day.

I estimate that there are 36 days in the calendar year on which festive knitwear is appropriate – from the first day of Advent to the 12th day of Christmas on 5 January. If you love Christmas and love your jumper, you could wear it every day. You could buy something with a stupid slogan from a charity shop, simply because it makes you laugh. You could start a tradition in which everyone you know does a football shirt swapping-style jumper exchange straight after the turkey is served on Christmas day.

Still, if we want to wear the jumpers, we have to channel Scrooge, and “honour Christmas in [our] heart, and try to keep it all the year”. That means that we must constantly be kind, considerate and charitable. By that logic, binning your Christmas jumper is the least Christmassy thing you could do.

Daisy Buchanan is a freelance columnist and features writer covering arts, entertainment and women’s issues

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