It was a red sweatshirt, and I bought material that was all point-settas, and I would ion it on to the sweatshirt,

and then I would put glitter paint on it, and I would put the paint around the edges that became rip puffy.

I'm talking to my mom about one of the more memorable visuals from my Christmas's growing up.

Mom was all about handmade crafts all throughout the year,

and of course at Christmas time, our home would be decorated with all manner of things

made of felt and glue and ribbon,

crocheted coesies and personalized Christmas stockings

stitched together at her heavy old sewing machine. Many of those items still exist today,

either at my mom's house or spread out among me and my siblings. And many others live on only in

the photos tucked away in bookcases and attics. And in many of those pictures, you can see my mom in another one of her handmade creations,

applcade and glitter glued and bedazzled to Christmas perfection, a Christmas sweater.

And she just may qualify as a pioneer in this field.

When was this?

Oh, gosh.

I would say like, say, let's just guess around 85, 84 or 85.

And hers were sweaters that only the 1980s could have produced.

That decade when thick-knit oversized sweaters with bold patterns and highly contrasting colors

and maybe even some shoulder pads thrown in for good measure,

weren't the retro statements they are now.

They were simply the fashion of the day.

Which, if you're getting a sense for the kind of person my mom is, also meant that she didn't stop at Christmas.

And I did it for Easter.

...