Microsoft's new Christmas sweater is an homage to the world's trustiest app, MS Paint

Microsoft MS Paint ugly Christmas sweater

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Each year Microsoft takes it upon itself to craft an 'ugly' Christmas sweater (or jumper for us brits), inspired by an OS, application, or just famous Windows thing. This year, it's an MS Paint-inspired jumper with all the makings of the world-class photo editing app, which was available to purchase Tuesday for $69.99, with a portion of every sale going to non-profit Girls Who Code.

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Calling this sweater 'ugly' is a little critical on Microsoft's part, in my opinion, but perhaps that's just a reflection of the entire Christmas sweater vibe as a whole. This MS Paint 'soft-wear' (sigh) is actually one of few Windows-inspired sweaters that I think you could get away with out in public, especially if you look at the Windows XP sweater from 2019. Ew.

In fact, this year's sweater has so enticed our rank that our dear Wes has gone and bought one for himself. Don't worry Wes, we won't judge you.

Sadly, it's now sold out. Two words that strike at the heart of any PC nerd in 2020. Leftover designs from past years were also briefly available, but those went almost immediately.

At least this year's sweater was on sale to the general public—previous versions of these sweaters were only distributed as giveaways. And a portion of those proceeds go straight to Girls Who Code, a non-profit organisation that is helping close the gender gap in technology roles through programming programs across the globe.

So while the MS Paint Christmas Sweater will only find use for a couple weeks this year, those lucky customers can be safe in the knowledge that their purchase also went some ways to helping out a greater cause.

And while it would be great to get more stock and therefore more cash donated to a good cause, while you won't get a neat sweater out of it, why not donate anyways? Just head to Girls Who Code's donation page to give what you're able. 'Tis the season.

Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog, before graduating into breaking things professionally at PCGamesN. Now he's managing editor of the hardware team at PC Gamer, and you'll usually find him testing the latest components or building a gaming PC.