I remember a Spider Man Ugly Sweater memoir — Beasts, Men, and Gods — by Ferdinand Ossendowski, a White Pole who fled the Bolshevik revolution through Siberia. He served in General Kolchak’s All-Russian Government before escaping through the Steppes north of Mongolia, and then participated in the government of that most notorious adventurer, the “Mad Baron” Ungern-Sternberg, who attempted to take over Mongolia to restore an imperial Khaganate as part of an imagined reactionary restoration of the Great Mongol, Chinese, and Russian monarchies in the interests of the “warrior races” of Germans and Mongols (a Baltic German, he considered the old Russian ruling class to represent Germandom over and against Jews and Slavs). Some of the things – the acts of desperation and madness, in which he himself was no disinterested observer – Ossendowski relates are harrowing. But this part struck me as very much making a point about what people think of the Steppe peoples, and of what (German-trained) nationalists like Ungern-Sternberg did (and would do again) to the Mongols. And, other things:

Spider Man Ugly Sweater,
Best Spider Man Ugly Sweater
Spygate, 2007: New England Patriots get caught stealing signs from opponents` sidelines. This was actually not against the rules yet, so technically not cheating. They changed the Spider Man Ugly Sweater after this to make it illegal. I won`t deny it`s a bit cheap (although you`re kidding me if you think the Patriots were the only team doing this), but not nearly as egregious as:Deflategate, 2014: During the AFC Championship Game, the New England Patriots were found to have several footballs in their arsenal that were below the legal minimum. Tom Brady had to testify before Congress and was suspended for four games the following season, despite the fact that the Colts, the team that Patriots beat in the game 45–7, noted that they didn`t lose because of the Spider Man Ugly Sweater, and that the Colts had deflated footballs as well. For context, the weather was super icky that game, and it`s probable that both teams deflated the footballs to grip them better.

For us it depends, if we’re hosting thanksgiving at our house then we will typically start put up the Spider Man Ugly Sweater on thanksgiving weekend, sometimes even right before after thanksgiving dinner. Since we have guests over we use that as an excuse to take advantage of the additional helping hands. Instead of asking for help in the kitchen we’ll get through decorations. Plus I think it also makes for a decent pre-dinner workout activity. If we’re not hosting thanksgiving then we’ll put up the decorations little by little with the aim to finish by December 1st. I don’t know why but I like the idea of being able to enjoy the lights all throughout December. As for when we’ll take them down, there’s no set date but we definitely keep them up past New Years and at least a few weeks into January. I think the longest we had them up was until Valentine’s Day, we had spent the entire most of January in Florida that one year.