It’s July 8, which means that there are only 170 shopping days left until Christmas, and what better way to celebrate than with an ugly Christmas sweater hockey jersey, courtesy of the ECHL’s Reading Royals.

The Royals have donned ugly sweater jerseys for games in each of the past two seasons. (We’ve even auctioned two off for charity!) They’ll be at it again for the 2015-16 season during their December 18th game against the Elmira Jackals.

Since it’s the summer, the preparations are under way, and this is the current front-runner:

Reading Royals More

It’s glorious. Beautiful and glorious. The color scheme is solid. The snowflakes with the blue background look solid, and the reindeer’ing of the Royals’ mascot, Slapshot, really set this apart from their previous editions. It’s another great design by Jeff Tasca and Athletic Knit.

The Royals posted the jersey on their Facebook page on Wednesday asking fans for their thoughts. The team told Puck Daddy that barring a slew of negative responses, this will indeed be the one they don on "Ugly Christmas Sweater Jersey Night" in December.

- - - - - - -

Sean Leahy is the associate editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Sean_Leahy

MORE FROM YAHOO HOCKEY: