Judged.

It's Christmas Eve and I thought I'd share a funny story. This happened last Thursday evening and it was only whilst discussing it last night, that we realised how funny the situation was. And people judged us to damnation with their eyes.

I was off work last Thursday and wanted to finish my Christmas shopping. Along with my wife and her sister, we went shopping locally to purchase our last few bits. My wife wanted to cut through a large relatively cut-price department store, to get to the main shopping centre.

On passing small Christmas gift bags, my wife commented on how nice and inexpensive they were to her sister. They had stopped - I had lost them mentally. They were distracted and in a shopping daze.

Gradually ushering them toward the exit and into the main shopping mall, they hesitated again. The rather awful Christmas jumper section had caught their eyes. Then I retold a story of how one of my best friends had stated to me the previous day, that he had found it difficult to find a decent Christmas jumper.

Little did I know - that I had been swallowed by the magic and allure of the department store. The Christmas music was also lulling me into the festive period, playing in the background.

I texted my mate telling him how great the selection was in this particular store. Then my sister-in-law suggested something that nearly made me fall over with laughter.

"Why don't we buy our Christmas day outfits here? And have a competition to see who can pick out the most disgusting one?"

I thought my wife would veto her mad plan, but she quickly agreed. I was totally in. I had spotted an awful jumper. I was confident of winning this test. And then the judging began.

The stern looks. The disapproving stares. The shaking of the heads. The way in which I laughed at something (which I thought was rotten) that others found fashionable. You can't hide that level of disapproval to a stranger. That made me laugh harder if I'm honest.

I know these large department stores hire store buyers that have their fingers on the pulse of fashion. They watch fashion trends and fashion houses to see "what's hot and what's not." But once I had spent five minutes in the awful, but beautiful itchy jumper section, everything seemed funny looking.

We split up and went our own ways picking up items for our Christmas day outfits. I picked up a rotten mustard jumper complete with brown elbow pads. It looked like wallpaper that hung on your parent's living room walls in years gone by.

I had decided to continue the 1970's look. So I bought tight, bright green trousers. Then continuing the theme, I picked up an orange hat, maroon socks and a large thick blue and red scarf. Feeling happy with myself and searching for the ladies, I thought I had chosen the perfect outfit. When we met up again ten minutes later, we laughed hard. My competition amongst the ladies was real tough.

My wife went for something akin to an outfit directly from the Roddy Doyle film, The Snapper. Bright and in your face. The kind of outfit where you need shades on.

My sister-in-law went for the librarian's wet dream look. Everything that any man, woman or child finds disgusting to look at. The funniest part was that she found the cardigan comfortable on.

As we shared how brilliant our outfits were, I felt eyes upon us. Judging us. Doing a twirl without drawing attention, I spotted five pairs of eyes gawping at us with derision.

Firstly - we were laughing far too loudly. Belly aching laughter that comes from the pit of your stomach. That was enough to draw people's attention. But then we became a little bit silly.

Customers were picking up some of the items we were ridiculing and then quickly putting them back. That drew stares too. We didn't mean to be disparaging of people's taste - we were just lost in the moment and a bit giddy.

Our giddiness was becoming infectious though. I started explaining why we were picking up these truly awful outfits. When they knew the story, they started laughing too.

The best part was when the two girls were paying for their clothes, they didn't notice how their laughter was affecting other people in the queue behind them. At least four of the five women in line were laughing to themselves - or at least smiling.

We were spreading Christmas cheer through our own silly mischievousness. Happy Christmas to you all!