Microsoft’s new Windows Ugly Sweater is the perfect Christmas gift whether the recipient is #TeamWindows or an Apple fan.
If they call into the former camp, they’ll wrap themselves in the warm, nostalgic days of Windows XP, which launched in 2001. The sweater memorializes the operating system’s iconic “Bliss” wallpaper, which captured the rolling, verdant hills, blue skies and wispy white clouds of Northern California’s Sonoma County in 1996.
Who knew we’d find this wallpaper on a sweater 22 years later?
Credit: Shutterstock
According to Microsoft, it’s debatably “the most-viewed photo of all time.”
If they’re an Apple fan, however, they can use the Windows Ugly Sweater as fireplace fodder. Everyone wins!
Microsoft’s ‘Windows Ugly Sweater’
This is the sixth time in a row that Microsoft has distributed Windows-inspired ugly Christmas sweaters. Last year, the Redmond-based tech giant rolled out a Clippy-based garment, which is arguably the best one yet.
And in 2021, we had to deal with Microsoft’s Minesweeper version — an ugly sweater for an ugly game.
Windows Central’s Zac Bowden has been collecting them for years, so you can see the unsightly predecessors of the 2023 Windows Ugly Sweater for yourself.
There’s a beautiful cause behind the ugly sweater
Microsoft is selling these, er, interesting looking sweaters to benefit The Nature Conservancy, an nonprofit environmental organization that seeks to protect ecologically significant lands and bodies of water all around the world.
The Windows Ugly Sweater is for a good cause.
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
The Redmond-based giant says it will contribute $100,000 of the sweater’s proceeds to The Nature Conservancy.
Microsoft sent Mashable a Windows Ugly Sweater, and I can’t get enough of it. It may be ugly, but it feels divine. I got a size small, but it still fits quite large on me, which is great for that baggy fit we all love from ugly Christmas sweaters. According to a Microsoft rep, it’s 55% cotton and 45% acrylic.
The Windows Ugly Sweater has a comfy, baggy fit.
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
Want to see how it fits on others? Check out the #WindowsUglySweater hashtag on social media.
Want to get your own Windows Ugly Sweater? You can snag one via the link below.
