SAN ANTONIO — For six weeks before Christmas, you can count on St. Nick's Sweater Shoppe to be set up on the side of the road with some of the tackiest winter garb you've ever seen.
"It's funny because some people come in and say, 'This is not ugly,' and we say, 'You know, ugly is in the eye of the beholder,'" said St. Nick's Owner Nick Carlos.
From hats and pajamas to T-shirts and, of course, your staple ugly sweater, they've got it all.
"We refer to this as the convenience store of ugly Christmas sweaters, because I do the legwork of going and scouring the city for the best sweaters," Carlos said.
He got his start nine years ago, after throwing his own ugly sweater party.
"I started telling my friends and a few of them said, 'I don't have an ugly Christmas sweater.' So I said, 'OK, let me go look around,' and I started scouring the stores and estate sales."
Turns out he was pretty good at finding the ugliest items available.
"You can go to the big box stores and find something, and we have those too," Carlos said. "We have different levels of tacky or different levels of ugly, but I like to say we have the vintage stuff that is organically ugly."
The vintage sweaters are the true treasure in this U-Haul.
"It's kind of a throwback, at least for me, to a simpler time. It's just when life wasn't so hectic. A taste of the good ol' days. People like the nostalgia," Carlos said.
But don't just stop at the sweater.
"A lot of people just stop up top when you've still got a whole other half of opportunity to be tacky, ugly, festive," Carlos said. "We don't just stop at the sweater or shirt. It's kind of a total package between hat, shirt, pants—we try to go from head to toe."
That's where Kelly Corbitt, Carlos' fiancé and today's head elf, comes in.
"When I started helping Nick out just with all the sweaters, I wanted to put my own little flair on it," she said. "That's when I came up with my beautiful tacky creations."
Corbitt created jewelry for years, so creating her own works to add to the store's inventory felt natural.
"Just to see the smiles on people's faces when they walk up and see they see the ugliness of the sweaters and they walk up to my towers. There is so much sadness in the world and we just like to spread so much joy and tackiness and ugliness everywhere," Corbitt said.
"You can't really go wrong with ugly Christmas sweaters, so if you don't match there's no judgement," Carlos added. "It's just about having fun and trying to make people smile in the process."
If you're in the need of something ugly for an upcoming holiday party, you can find out where their next set up will be by following St. Nick's Ugly sweater Shoppe on Facebook.
>TRENDING ON KENS 5 YOUTUBE: