How 25 Christmas Traditions Started-- Part 2: Logs, Calendars, Houses, Nutcracker and Sweaters

6.  YULE LOG

Part of ancient solstice celebrations.  But, airing on TV of a fire blazing away was 1966 on WPIX-TV in New York City.

7.  ADVENT CALENDARS

Early versions started in Germany in 1903.  Children open one small door or window each day in the countdown and get something.

8.  GINGERBREAD HOUSES

Queen Elizabeth I gets  credit for decorating it, but started in Germany

9.  THE NUTCRACKER

Music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and originally choreographed by  Marius Petipa.    Premiered  December 18, 1892, in St. Petersburg, Russia.

10.  UGLY CHRISTMAS SWEATERS

Sounds like a Canadian thing. Hosers!!

--DaCoot

Ten Things You Didn't Know About Sweaters-- Part 4: Wall Street's Sweater Girl and Ugly Christmas Sweaters

9.  For a short time in late 1968, Francine Gottfried was famous.  Dubbed "WALL STREET'S SWEATER GIRL," the 21-year-old bank data processing worker took the same route to work every day, and large crowds of men began gathering near the New York Stock Exchange to ogle her tight sweaters.

Before the furor subsided, 10,000 gawkers showed up one day.  "These people in Wall Street have the responsibility of handling millions of dollars and they act like they are out of their minds," said Gottfried, who moved on to work somewhere else.  Her treatment inspired feminists to stage an "Ogle-In" on June 9, 1970, leering at male passers-by and commenting loudly about their body parts.

10.  UGLY CHRISTMAS SWEATERS used to be what made your grandmother special.  Now they are a thing, a meme, a point of (ironic) hipster pride-- and big business.  There are a 21-event 5K charity race series and numerous pub crawls, and the so-called National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day is the second Friday of September.

People hold ugly-sweater-themed parties, and if you can't figure out how to do it by yourself, there's a book.  Major retailers claim to have have THE ugliest sweater.

I feel that I Missed Out in 1968.  --Cootleer

Ten Things You Might Not Know About Sweaters-- Part 3: Hockey Jerseys?, Turtlenecks and TV

6.  HOCKEY PLAYERS don't wear jerseys; they wear sweaters.  Or, at least they are called sweaters, harking back to the days when games were often played outdoors.

7.  English playwright Noel Coward popularized the TURTLENECK SWEATER in the 1920s, giving men the courage to come out of their shells and flout the shirt-and-tie status quo.  But it was 1967 that was declared "Year of the Turtle" by a fashion magazine.  Popular with beatniks and artists, the fad was powered by the likes of Johnny Carson, Sammy Davis Jr., Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Steve McQueen.

8.  In October 2013, Norway's NRK television network broadcast "National Knitting Evening," a show lasting about 12 hours-- that covered the complete sweater-making process from lamb shearing to the knitting of the garment.  More than 1.2 million people watched the program.

Winder how many fell asleep.

Must-See TV Indeed.  --Cooter

Ten Things You Might Not Know About Sweaters-- Part 2: Good Old Charlie Brown, Mandigans and Dust Storms

3.  Some people describe "Peanuts" character CHARLIE BROWN'S's zigzag garment as a sweater and others call it a shirt.  In any case that's not what he was wearing when the comic strip debuted in 1950.  "For the first two weeks of the strip, he wore a plain white T-shirt," cartoonist Charles Schulz recalled.  "But then I realized the strip needed more color, so i drew a sweater."

4.  A cardigan worn by a man is sometimes called a MANDIGAN.

5.  The inexpensive cashmere sweater you get for a steal cost more than you think.  The world's insatiable appetite for the famously soft garments led to overgrazing on the Alashan grasslands in China which in turn was a major factor in the increase of DUST STORMS so vast they crossed the Pacific Ocean and polluted the air in the United States.

--GreGen

Ten Things You Might Not Know About Sweaters-- Part 1: Assassination Attempts and Cardigans

From the December 25, 2015, Chicago Tribune  by Mark Jacob and Stephan Benzkofer.

In this time of Ugliest Christmas Sweaters.

1.  Sweaters keep out the cold, but also might save your life.  In 1978, during the COLD WAR, an assassination attempt on Bulgarian defector Vladimir Kostov, a former state radio editor who lived in Paris was thwarted when a poison dart failed to penetrate his thick woolen sweater.

2.  JAMES THOMAS BRUDENELL was the British officer who led the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War. he is also remembered as the man whose subordinates wore a distinctive type of knitted clothing to ward off Crimea's chilly weather.  The garment was ultimately named for Brudenell, the 7th Earl of Cardigan.

Warm Me Up.  --Cootsweater