No, it’s not the holiday-themed sequel to last winter’s Katherine Heigl vehicle 27 Dresses, but merely a delightfully distasteful dose of misguided Christmas cheer funneled from Flickr into slideshow form by our friends at The Daily Green. Their compilation of the 27 Best Ugly Christmas Sweaters should not only serve as an occasion for holiday-mocking finger-pointing, but also be pounced upon as a guide for last-minute shopping ideas. Behold, some gaudy highlights:

Bros Before Ho-Ho-Hoes Sweater Party

tobym/Flickr

What would otherwise have been a tiresome sausage-fest kegger in College Town, U.S.A. becomes a beery cheertacular party among rosy-cheeked boys decked like those proverbial halls. How about the fine young man second from the left with his all-red midriff-bearing number? Someone’s looking sexy for Santa. The guy in the blue PJs in the middle seems confused though: his bat-shaped codpiece is clearly a slap-dash Halloween carry-over. Someone’s getting coals in their stocking.

Hipsterific Holiday Knitwear

alexanderwolf/Flickr

Another American tradition gets put through the semi-critical irony blender by yuletide indie rockers. Notice the implicit attack staged not only against Christmas and its perennial red-and-green color palette, but also against love and the good old U.S. of A. Finally, notice the left-most gentleman’s sunglasses, shielding him from the searing brightness of his neon-colored sweater.

Walking Christmas Card Clichés

Jonathan Wakuda Fischer/Flickr

Either this young man has had ten too many eggnogs and can no longer feel his friends’ suspicious, lingering backslaps loaded with funny messages, or he’s wearing the most adaptive Christmas sweater ever invented. Whether you’re up or down on the holidays, the message you broadcast can be reformed, edited and subverted to suit your degree of cheerfulness and that of those around you.

Ugly Sweaters Make Mediocre Chests Hotter by Comparison

brw2/Flickr

Scanning from right to left, these beautiful gents read like a history of ugly Christmas sweaters. At left, a semi-tacky knit number is integrated into a casual cool Christmas party-look complete with elegant glasses frames, calm smile and comfortable demeanor. At center the picture gets uglier, with some unintended tummy and undie waistband showing, complemented by a matching white turtleneck and bulging Santa sweater.

By the time we reach the confused man on the right, holiday party decorum is clearly no longer in place. This guy is pumped for Christmas. His open-mouthed excitement and pasty, open sweater-vested chest speak to a holiday hunger for cheer, good times, Christmas albums and foods (like the ones knitted helpfully into his sweater in case, in his excitement, he forgets how to ask for gingerbread cookies).

If there’s anything missing from The Daily Green’s list, it’s a self-referential joke about ugly shades of holiday green and this picture:

The Hayden Family blog