Good morning on this drafty Wednesday.

Over the last few years, we’ve noticed a disheartening commoditization and mass production taking hold of a classic holiday tradition.

We’re talking about ugly Christmas sweaters.

Call us traditionalists, but a true ugly Christmas sweater should lack any irony when it is made. Ideally, the garment’s makers genuinely think their unsightly design is quite lovely.

Once upon a time, before ugly Christmas sweaters were a joke, that was the case.

“A lot of the most popular designs of the ugly Christmas sweater revolution were taken from thrift shops or an aunt or grandmother’s closet,” said Brian Miller, one of the authors of “Ugly Christmas Sweater Party Book: The Definitive Guide to Getting Your Ugly On.”

“They weren’t really intended to be funny or mass produced,” Mr. Miller said. “They were just gaudy and stood out when you put them on, and other people thought, ‘That’s hilarious.’”