Crafty Ideas
The Best Ugly Sweater Christmas Party

The Best Ugly Sweater Christmas Party

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Hi, ugly sweater lover! If you’re looking for a fun ugly sweater Christmas party to attend this year, then look no further. We have all your ugly Christmas needs covered at our annual ugly sweater party. With ugly sweaters galore and holiday cheer in the air, it’s sure to be one of the best ugly sweater parties yet! No need to throw an ordinary Holiday party this year when you can throw an epic Ugly Sweater Christmas party! This tradition first started by raiding your grandmother’s closet for the gaudiest Christmas sweater you could find.

Don't Forget This for an  Epic Ugly Sweater Christmas Party

Now you can buy Ugly Sweaters to match your style from something truly hideous to ones with blinking lights on them to even ones from your favorite NFL pro team. But, the party is where it is at! Don’t forget this for an epic ugly sweater party.

Ugly Sweater History


While many people think ugly sweaters are only appropriate as gifts during the holiday season, they have actually been around since 1960 (despite their name). They were originally worn to ugly sweater parties as a joke to be funny and lighthearted. They soon became popular during the holiday season, but their existence is not limited to being worn only at Christmas.

Of course, there were ugly sweaters before 1960 – we just donned them with mock gratitude and thanked the person who usually spent hours working on them – and with love. We knew that they would at least keep us warm.

What is an ugly Christmas sweater?

An ugly sweater is a festive, knitted garment with an intentionally ugly design. You can find them but around Christmas? There are a ton more options available!

No ugly sweater party is complete without the following ugly Christmas sweaters in your closet. You don’t need to dress up as Santa or have a lot of dough (dough, get it?).

Ugly reindeer sweaters – for those who love Rudolph’s furry little nose and want to show some holiday spirit with their ugly sweater this year!

Badger ugly knit sweaters – perfect if you’re one of those people that think badgers are adorable at any time of the year? Well – those of us from Wisconsin certainly do!

Menacing snowman ugly workwear – these snowy monsters will make sure everything is covered in frosty goodness during chilly winter days. Plus, they can also serve as pretty good scarecrows come Halloween season…no judgment here…

Ugly Sweater Christmas Party Invitation

Start the holiday season by sending out your Ugly Christmas Sweater Party Invitations. Give everyone a few weeks notice as the holiday season seems to get jam-packed quickly!

Ugly Christmas Sweater Party Invitations

These invitations were the perfect items we were looking for. Plenty of room to write the information about your Ugly Sweater Party! The colors are nice. Pictures are a true representation of what they look like. Don’t think twice about buying these. They are worth every penny!

Here is the thing – you can challenge them to ONLY get their sweaters at one of the local thrift stores. Maybe you want to have them all actually make their sweaters – seriously, just have fun with it!

Ugly Sweater Christmas Party Supplies

What do you need to host the perfect Ugly Sweater holiday party? You’ll need ugly sweaters, decorations, and plenty of delicious appetizers. Don’t forget to invite your friends!

Let us take a look at a few things that might help you out as far as setting the stage for your epic entertaining adventure:

Ugly Sweater Christmas Party: Christmas Crafts, Recipes, Activities

Sometimes it is hard to think of what you should do during the party. This Ugly Christmas Sweater Party: Christmas Crafts, Recipes, Activities has ideas to help you craft a truly original, epic Ugly Christmas Party.

Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

Ugly Sweater Wine Bottle Covers

Decorating for your party is half the fun! These Ugly Sweater Wine Bottle Covers get the wine in on the festivities. I mean, they are already a part of the fun times, but you know what I mean! Hide a different type of wine in each and give the winners of the Ugly Sweater Contest a bottle.

Ugly Sweater Wine Bottle Covers

Cast Your Vote

Yep, you will want to have everyone that attends your party Cast A Vote for the ugliest sweater. You can do one big contest or break it out into subcategories. It just depends on how many people you have coming over and how many prizes you have for the winners.

Cast your Vote

Ugly Sweater Christmas Party Ballot Boxes

Toss those Ugly Sweater Votes in this super cute Ugly Sweater Ballot Box. It is the little touches like this that will make your party run smoothly. 

Ugly Sweater Ballot Boxes

Ugly sweater Christmas party decorations

This is a great decoration kit that I found on Amazon – just look at all it contains! I love that it includes: 2 sheets of mini candy bar wrappers (total 40), 2 sheets of round candy stickers (total 216), and 2 sheets of circle stickers (total 48). Easy assembly with this peel and stick favor kit. Simply center and press stickers onto your favorite candies to style candy buffets or decorate take-home favors for party guests. Note: Candy is not included.

Ugly sweater Christmas party decorations

It even has Ugly sweater Christmas party table decorations!

Ugly Sweater Christmas party napkins

Grab these Ugly Christmas Sweater Paper Cocktail Napkins to have on hand for your party. Perfect to have with the appetizers and on your end tables to use as coasters. 

Ugly Christmas Sweater Paper Cocktail Napkins

Ugly Sweater Light House

When you collect Christmas decorations, don’t forget about this Ugly Sweater Light House that would fit in (somewhat) in your Christmas village. 

Ugly Sweater Light House

Ugly Sweater Party Games

What kinds of games do you play at an ugly sweater Christmas party? You can play pretty much any holiday game, we have this great pack of printable Christmas games on Etsy. There are activities for pretty much all ages – and they are even great for ZOOM events.

Ugly Sweater Christmas Party Food Ideas

What do you serve for an epic party? You can serve all sorts of goodies – hot cocoa, ugly sweater cookies, and so much more! We found a few fun things to whip up one or two different themed gems that will work wonderfully with your traditional party food.

Ugly Sweater Christmas Party Cupcake Wrappers with Picks

Don’t forget about the dessert for your party! Make some cupcakes and use these Ugly Christmas Sweater Cupcake Wrappers with Picks to dress them up a notch. Love them!

Ugly Christmas Sweater Cupcake Wrappers with Picks

Ugly Christmas Sweater Cookie Cutter

If you are truly ambitious, break out your favorite cookie recipe the day before your party. Use this Ugly Christmas Sweater Cookie Cutter on sugar cookies, gingerbread, or your favorite cookie recipe. With sugar cookies, don’t forget to make the icing and decorate them ugly as you can.

If you wanted to, you could make this an event task! Have the cookies prebaked and have toppings handy like frosting, candy decorations, and more. You can even have a contest for the best “ugly sweater” cookie!

Ugly Christmas Sweater Cookie Cutter

Ugly Sweater Christmas Party Chalkboard Vinyl Decals

It is hard to tell drinks apart, especially after you’ve had a few. These Ugly Sweater Christmas Party Chalkboard Vinyl Decals would be perfect to apply to mason jars or wine glasses for the night. They peel over super easy afterward too.

Ugly Sweater Christmas Party Chalkboard Vinyl Decals

Christmas Ugly Sweater Cake Pan

This Wilton Christmas Ugly Sweater Cake Pan would create a truly Epic Ugly Christmas Cake. Do you have the skill to try and decorate it? Challenge accepted!

Christmas Ugly Sweater Non-Stick Cake Pan

Ugly sweater Christmas party appetizers

Besides the already suggested cookies, cupcakes, and cakes, what else can you serve? Here is the beauty of this kind of party: any. thing. you. want.

You can get as messy as you want and no one will be worried about getting any food on their clothes! Bring out the BBQ sauce, tomato sauce, neon cheese dips, and more! Even meatballs will be fab with a few ugly sweater picks in them!

Ugly Sweater Christmas party prizes

What would you give the winner of an ugly sweater contest? We found the perfect ugly sweaters for all of your ugly sweater contest winners, you’re going to love them!

This set of 6 Ugly Sweater Party Christmas Ornaments lets you award 6 different categories of winners. What categories would you narrow it down to?

Ugly Sweater Christmas party prizes

How about the ugliest animal sweater, Santa Sweater, tree sweater, ugliest one that was received as a gift, the ugly ugly ugly ugly sweater, and the one that made you laugh? Those are just a few ideas, I know you can come up with a few gems of your own!

Ugly sweater Christmas party hairstyles

Yes, some people deck out their hair in addition to wearing that unique sweater. If you’re looking for ugly Christmas hairstyles, there are plenty of tutorials available – we get a kick out of this one we found on Youtube that uses an empty plastic water bottle to shape it:

Check out this fun Christmas Tree Hair tutorial

Ugly sweater Christmas party Zoom

It IS possible to host a party via ZOOM – we all learned that over the course of COVID19. We have a fun background here for you to use – but more are in our Etsy Shop. Just click on it to save it to your computer and then you should be ready to upload it to ZOOM.

If you aren’t savvy at how to do that, this is a great video on how to work the settings, etc. so you can change your backdrop.

If that all doesn’t help you have the best ugly sweater holiday party, I am not sure what will, LOL! When it comes down to it, the Ugly Sweater Christmas party is really about being with friends and family while enjoying something that’s not so pretty on the outside but beautiful inside.

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