Thousands of Scots will pop on their tackiest festive sweaters to mark Christmas Jumper Day today.
The event, which is held annually on December 10, sees school children and office workers help to raise money for Save The Children.
Since the event launched in 2012, the charity has raised more than £27 million to help kids in need across the globe.
Scots are being urged to decorate old jumpers or pick up preowned ones from a charity shop instead of purchasing a new one this year.
Everyone taking part in the occasion has been encouraged to donate £2 to Save the Children, or £1 for school children.
While Christmas Jumper Day is a new phenomenon, the concept of Christmas jumpers has been around for decades, Cambridgeshire Live reports.
1890 - 1960
According to Dr Benjamin Wild, the Christmas jumper can be traced to the heavy, warm sweaters that were hand-knitted in Scandinavia and Iceland before the twentieth century.
He said: “Characterised by contrasting bands of geometric patterns, which are popular in today’s Fair Isle knits, the jumpers distinguished fishermen from different communities. One suggestion is that this was to identify their bodies if they drowned at sea.”
However, the jumpers became more widely known because they were associated with skiing, another popular Scandinavian sport.
“Skiers needed warm clothing as much as fishermen and as their sport developed during the first half of the twentieth century, knitwear with bands of geometric patterns and colours influenced by forest landscapes, became common skiwear.
"As affluent travellers returned from the ski slopes of Europe with their colourful knits, the humble jumper was elevated to a symbol of luxury and glamour,” Dr Wild explained.
1960 - 2000s
The substitution of suits and dresses for knitwear during the festive season could be seen in a range of films and TV as the decades marched on.
“The pop-culture and catwalk of the Eighties and Nineties really helped festive knitwear to develop attitude as designers injected the energy of the decades into their creations resulting in bright heavily patterned jumpers as adopted by stars of the small screen.
"These included British TV host Noel Edmunds in Noel’s House Party,” Dr Wild said.
However, the festive knitwear of this time was still a long way from some of the multi-sensory and eccentric Christmas jumpers we see today.
“Kurt Griswold wore jumpers decorated with geometric patterns rather than reindeer heads, snowmen and Santa in the National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989), Macaulay Culkin’s jumpers were no more festive when he defended his family residence from the “Wet Bandits” in Home Alone (1990).
"Christmas jumpers were similarly plain in the television-movie Christmas in Connecticut (1992), directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
2001 - present day
"However, almost ten years later, Colin Firth wore his striking black roll neck featuring a red-nosed Rudolph in the first Bridget Jones movie (2001), which helped pave the way for the Christmas jumpers we know and love today."
Commenting on our love for Christmas Jumpers and current day styles, Dr Benjamin Wild said: "The Christmas jumper has become a popular purchase and has a particular appeal among Brits because of their enjoyment of quirky and playful humour, although it has become a source of merriment in America, where ‘Ugly Christmas Sweater’ contests are held.
"In recent years, the geometric pattern that characterised these early winter woollies has become more common in Britain as well as the more over-the-top designs."
Talking about the future of Christmas jumpers, Dr Benjamin Wild said: "We are already starting to see multi-sensory jumpers with sounds and lights. Three-dimensional printing and wearable technology would definitely make the winter woolly a greater sensory experience and push up the demand for novelty statement Christmas jumpers.
"Using fibre-optics, there could even be the possibility to sync jumper designs, colours and sounds via a mobile phone app, to enable family, friends and colleagues to coordinate their jumpers for the most dramatically festive and fashionable scene!"
