The law of supply and demand is taking a toll on the holiday party scene this year. Puff-painted Santas, appliqued reindeer and jingle-bell vests are scarce as sobriety on New Year’s Eve.

Just a couple years ago, you could walk into about any thrift store and find rack upon rack of faded and pilled, sparkly and ruffled, feathered and fluffy, tacky, tacky Christmas sweaters. Not any more.

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The hottest trend in holiday festivities — the ugly Christmas sweater party — has put a premium on the visually repulsive-yet-hilarious woven garments.

“We haven’t been able to find them to put in our store,” says Dolly Python owner Gretchen Bell. “We actually got some in today, but they’ve been flying off the shelves.”

At Goodwill on Westmoreland this morning, I asked an employee: “Don’t you have any Christmas sweaters?”

“There are a few of them mixed in there,” she replied.

The ones we found were only moderately ugly, but I snapped up two for $8 and sold them to a co-worker, who insisted on paying me $20 for them.

At Marshall’s on Forest at Marsh, a cashier said they can’t keep Christmas sweaters in stock. We’re not sure why Christmas sweaters are all the rage this year, but if your sweater is not that ugly, here’s how to get hip.

Chris Burt of Frisco went to an ugly Christmas sweater party in East Dallas last weekend. He got lucky and borrowed an ugly sweater from a friend, but ugly is not really enough.

Competition for such kitschy prizes as a pole dancer alarm clock is darned fierce.

So Burt jazzed up his sweater.

“I made it 3-D,” he says. “3-D is the way to win an ugly sweater party.”

He bought fake poinsettias from the dollar store and applied them to the sweater.

“I’m a guy, so I used duct tape,” he says.

His ugly sweater took second place to a guy who also had a 3-D sweater — a snowman made of cotton balls, gold lace woven though to make a border, and mittens pinned to the bottom. To win best ugly sweater, spare no tacky. At this party, the men had the best sweaters because women are more likely to go for cute.

“We don’t care about cute,” Burt says. “We care about winning. I mean, I wore a woman’s sweater, so…”