17 Christmas Sweater Outfits for Women Over 50

Here's the soft gray cashmere crewneck you stopped wearing out, with red-and-green tartan flannel pants and brown suede moccasins. Put it on before anyone else is up.

If the cashmere you own now makes you too hot at parties, don't give it away. Christmas morning is where it earns its drawer space. The house is cool at seven and you're sitting still.

Let the sweater fall to your hip so it covers the pull-on waistband. The tartan lets the sweater stay plain, and one pattern is plenty before breakfast.

Once the wrapping paper's cleared, trade the flannel for dark straight pants. The same sweater goes to brunch.

In January, fold it back into the drawer, because hanging cashmere stretches the shoulders and pulls the body longer.

A navy sweater with a cream reindeer across the front, dark straight jeans and white leather sneakers. This is the one for the floor with the grandkids, and it can be as silly as you like because nothing else in the outfit is.

Before you buy it, turn it inside out. Loose strands of yarn running behind the pattern are called floats, and small fingers hook them. One good tug and Rudolph has a snag across his nose.

Look for intarsia instead, where each block of color is knit with its own yarn. The inside is almost as smooth as the outside, with nothing to catch.

Skip a printed reindeer for this job. Prints can crack where the knit stretches, and you'll stretch it every time you scoop someone up.

Then read the care label. If it says hand wash, believe it. If it allows the machine, turn the sweater inside out, use the wool or cold delicate cycle and dry it flat out of the sun.

A forest-green cable sweater long enough to cover your seat, slim black ponte pants and soft black ballet flats. It's tree-trimming night, you'll be up on the step stool, and this sweater stays put when you reach.

Test it in the fitting room by reaching both arms overhead. If your waistband or your stomach shows, it's too short for this night. A tunic that ends around mid-thigh won't budge.

Ponte is a thick, smooth knit with some stretch, and it's here instead of leggings on purpose. The American Academy of Dermatology says tight clothes rub and make dry skin worse. Ponte skims.

With that much length on top, keep the pants narrow at the ankle. Wide legs under a tunic turn you into one long column of knit.

Cables are bulky, so choose ones running in vertical lines over one wide panel across your chest. They're also warm, which helps when the door's propped open for the tree.

A cranberry sweater with sleeves that stop just past the elbow, slim charcoal ankle pants and gray wool socks with a red snowflake pattern. You're hosting a shoes-off house, and your shoes are by the door with everybody else's.

The sleeve does two jobs. You'll be in and out of a hot oven all afternoon, and an elbow-length sleeve stays out of the gravy. It also covers your upper arm, if that's a part you'd rather keep to yourself.

Then the feet. Bare feet on a cold floor look like you forgot, and fuzzy slippers look like you gave up. Patterned wool socks that pick up the sweater's red look planned.

On slick wood floors, look for socks with grippy dots on the soles. You'll be carrying hot dishes.

The ankle-length pants matter more than they seem to. Without shoes, a full-length hem drags on the floor and picks up every crumb from the kitchen. At the ankle, the hem stays clean and the snowflake socks get seen.

A fine black crewneck scattered with small silver stars, gray flannel pants, black leather loafers and small gold hoops. For lunch with people from work, you want to look like you came from a meeting.

At work, keep the motif small. Stars about the size of a fingertip, spaced well apart, read as texture across a restaurant table. Up close they're a little wink.

Look for a fine gauge, which means thin yarn knit tightly so the sweater lies flat. A chunky knit at lunch makes you look bundled up for the walk over.

Push the sleeves to just below the elbow. A bit of forearm makes the outfit look less buttoned up, and your upper arms stay covered.

Leave the blazer at home. A jacket over a sweater gets bulky across the chest and hides the stars, which are the reason you wore it. If the restaurant runs cold, bring a long gray scarf.

A plum crewneck with a thin gold band at the cuffs, a black velvet midi skirt, opaque black tights and black knee-high boots. It's the Christmas Eve service, and old churches are cold.

The midi length is about the pew. A skirt that ends mid-calf still covers your knees when you sit, and it overlaps the top of a knee-high boot so no leg shows in between.

Under knee boots, wear opaque tights in the same color as the boots, so there's one unbroken line from hem to floor. Sheer pantyhose under tall boots can wrinkle at the ankle. With brown boots, wear chocolate tights.

Keep the sweater to your hip and wear it out, or tuck just the front if you like your waist marked. A long sweater over a long skirt buries you.

Plum and black are quiet enough for candlelight. The gold at the cuffs is all the shine you need, and it catches the flame when you hold your candle.

An oatmeal sweater with a row of little gingerbread men across the chest, a crisp white cotton shirt underneath with the collar and cuffs out, khaki pants and clean white sneakers. Wear it to a cookie swap at a friend's, where there will be frosting.

The shirt is the useful part. If wool against your neck has started to itch, you're not imagining it. Skin gets thinner and drier with age, and the American Academy of Dermatology suggests a cotton or silk layer under rough fabrics.

A collar does that job and looks sharp doing it. Roll the shirt cuffs back over the sweater sleeves, twice, and your wrists stay clear of the icing.

Gingerbread is the easy motif. It says holidays without saying Christmas, so it works at a cookie swap, a Sunday dinner or a December book club. Here's a good test for any holiday sweater: name three places you'd wear it before you pay.

A red-and-white snowflake turtleneck, brown corduroy pants, a camel wool coat worn open, brown lace-up boots and a red knit hat. You're walking the neighborhood after dark to see the lights, and this is where a turtleneck belongs.

Outdoors, the high neck keeps the wind off and stands in for a scarf. Inside a warm house, the same neck traps heat under your chin, and it can make you look like you're hiding in your sweater. Save it for the cold.

Brown cords pull the red toward a cabin and away from a mall Santa. Look for a fine wale, meaning narrow ribs, which lie flatter over your hips than wide ones.

The coat should be longer than the sweater by at least a hand's width, so the hem doesn't peek out the bottom. Leave it open and the snowflakes show in a stripe down the middle.

Check the boots for real tread. Front walks get icy once the sun's down.

A white cotton crewneck with a sprig of red-and-green holly embroidered near one shoulder, navy cropped pants and tan leather loafers. This is Christmas in Southern California or Florida, where the party might spill onto the patio.

Cotton gives you a holiday sweater without the wool weight. Hold it up to a lamp in the store: you want an open knit with light coming through. A dense, heavy cotton can feel as hot as wool and takes ages to dry.

Embroidery is how a light knit gets festive. Many knitted-in patterns carry the unused colors across the back in loose strands, which adds weight and warmth. Holly stitched on top adds almost none.

An elbow or three-quarter sleeve is fine here, and cropped pants show some ankle, which is about as much skin as December asks for.

Cotton grows as you wear it, so buy it fitted. By the end of the party it will have relaxed into the size you wanted.

A plain cobalt sweater from your own drawer, covered in felt shapes, with black pants and black ankle boots. Nobody at the party needs to know it goes back to normal on Monday.

If you've been to enough ugly sweater parties to be tired of buying one more thing every December, this is your way out.

Cut ornaments, candy canes and a lopsided tree from craft felt. Hand-baste them on with big, loose running stitches in a thread that stands out against the blue, so you can find every stitch later.

After the party, snip the stitches and draw the thread out from the inside, slowly, so you don't pull a loop in the knit.

Use a medium-weight sweater. Felt is stiff, and on a thin knit it drags the fabric down and makes it pucker.

And if the invitation just says ugly sweater, ask the host whether they mean the contest. People use it both ways, and some just mean a holiday sweater.

A red sweater with a green Christmas tree built from real pompoms and a little bell at the top, black straight pants, black flats, red lipstick and pearl studs. If you're going to compete, go all the way, but only on the sweater.

Everything else is what you'd wear to a nice dinner: real earrings, good shoes, neat hair. That's what makes the sweater a joke you're in on.

It goes wrong when the rest of the outfit joins in. Elf socks, a light-up headband and striped leggings turn a funny sweater into a costume, the kind that looks borrowed from your granddaughter.

Look for this one at thrift shops and church rummage sales. Party sweaters often turn up there after one wear, which suits you, because you don't plan to wear it twice either.

Fluff the pompoms with your fingers in the car before you go in. They flatten under a coat.

A charcoal Fair Isle sweater with a deep band of cream and red pattern around the hem and cuffs, plain charcoal through the chest, with dark brown wool pants and tan suede loafers. This one outlives the party.

Worried a Fair Isle yoke will give you a linebacker's shoulders? Where the pattern sits is the right thing to worry about.

The eye goes to the busiest part of a sweater. A band across the shoulders widens you up top, and a band at the hem pulls the eye down. If you're broad through the shoulders, keep the pattern low.

If you're narrow up top and fuller through the middle, do the opposite.

At the contest, a good Fair Isle won't win. It keeps you in the spirit without a costume, and it goes on to the football game, the sledding hill and every cold weekend after.

An emerald crewneck knit with a fine gold thread running through it, a black pencil skirt that ends at the knee, sheer black pantyhose and black velvet flats. It sparkles when you move and looks like a dark green sweater when you don't.

Is a sparkly sweater with a pencil skirt too dressy for the family party? Usually it's the shoes that tip it. Shiny heels with a slim skirt look like you're heading somewhere fancier afterward.

Swap in flats and the same pieces look like you came to see everyone.

Keep the shine as a thread in the knit. A sweater covered in sequins puts all that glitter right at your face and can look like you're there to cut a ribbon.

If you want sequins, put them on the skirt and keep the sweater plain. And before you buy, wear it around the store for a minute. Metallic thread can scratch at the neck and cuffs, which is where you'd feel it all night.

An ice-blue V-neck with a band of white snowflakes around the neck and shoulders and a plain body, worn untucked over charcoal straight pants with dark gray suede ankle boots. If your weight has moved to your middle, this is the shape.

That shift is real. Cleveland Clinic explains that as estrogen falls, fat tends to move from the hips and thighs to the belly. The sweater that worked at 40 may land in a different place on you now.

Start with the hem. It should stop at your high hip, a couple of inches below the waistband, and hang straight down from your chest without curving in under your stomach.

The V does the rest. A neckline that ends about three inches below your collarbone opens up the chest, and the snowflakes sit up near your face.

Skip ribbing that hugs the bottom edge. A tight band at the hem grabs exactly where you'd rather it didn't, and the plain body only works if it hangs.

A camel crewneck with one small embroidered wreath, about the size of your palm, over the heart, worn with ivory wide-leg pants and cognac leather loafers. It says Merry Christmas to the person you're talking to, and to nobody across the room.

How far to go with novelty comes down to size and number. One small motif is festive. One big motif across the front is a statement. A dozen scattered around is a theme party.

Choose for the party you're going to and how you feel about it.

A wreath or holly in a color you already wear can go out the week before Thanksgiving and keep going until the decorations come down. Santa, reindeer and stockings get you about three weeks.

If you're buying one new holiday sweater this year, this kind is worth the money. You'll wear it to the grocery store in November and the family party in December.

A solid burgundy crewneck, black straight pants, black suede ankle boots and small gold earrings. Somebody's going to line everybody up on the stairs, and this picture will be on refrigerators for years.

If your family likes matching sweaters, offer to pick a color instead of a print. Everybody in burgundy, cranberry or deep green looks like a family. Everybody in the same printed reindeer looks like an ad.

A solid, deep color also behaves in photos. Fine stripes and busy patterns can shimmer on a phone camera, and a dark shade doesn't fight the lit tree behind you.

Check the shoulder seam before the day. It should sit on your shoulder bone. A seam that drops an inch down your arm makes you look slumped in every shot.

Push the sleeves up just a little before the picture. Long cuffs swallow your hands, and one of yours will probably be on somebody's shoulder.

A bright red merino crewneck, a black silk tee with elbow sleeves under it, black wide-leg pants and black flats with a small jeweled buckle. When the room gets hot, the red comes off and you're still dressed for the party.

Memorial Sloan Kettering's advice for hot flashes is light layers, so one can come off. The catch is that the layer underneath has to look finished on its own, with no camisole straps and no bare arms.

So choose the tee first. Silk or smooth cotton that skims instead of clinging, a sleeve that covers your upper arm, a crew neck that won't slip. Make it black, so with black pants you're one long, dark line when the sweater's off.

Then the sweater. Fine merino is soft and thin enough to come off over your head without taking your earrings with it. It should fit neatly, neither tight nor boxy, and stop at your hip.

Taking it off in front of everyone is fine if you do it like you meant to. Cross your arms, take the hem at both sides and lift in one move. Then drape it over your chair or knot the sleeves over your shoulders.

The silk does one more job. It keeps the wool off your skin, so the itch you'd feel by the second hour never starts.