Microsoft’s holiday sweaters are back — tackier, itchier, and somehow more earnest than ever. After missing a year, the company quietly reopened its seasonal merch pipeline on December 1 with three limited-run knits that read like a mixtape of Microsoft’s past: an “Artifact” sweater plastered with pixel-perfect relics (Clippy takes center stage), a suspiciously chocolate-brown Zune option, and an Xbox green jersey aimed at the gamers in the family. Microsoft posted the drop on its Windows Experience blog and is selling the pieces through its company store, the Redmond campus shop and its New York experience center.

If you like nostalgia served with heavy irony, the Artifact sweater is the one to study. It’s a patchwork of product icons — MSN, Minesweeper, Internet Explorer, MS-DOS, Paint, a little Windows printer — and yes, Clippy looking cheerfully out of place among the pixel art. The sweater even puts Microsoft’s more recent branding on display: a Copilot logo is tucked into the collage, a choice that split opinion online between “cute throwback” and “please don’t make AI part of my holiday wardrobe.” The company’s own product post lists the full roster; coverage of the drop points to the Copilot inclusion as the most eyebrow-raising detail for many readers.

The Zune sweater leans into cult appeal — all brown, with a huge play button motif that practically dares you to cue up an MP3 and slow-dance with your nostalgia. The Xbox sweater trades the retro archival tone for a simpler gamer flex in green and black; it’s cheaper to pre-order, too. Microsoft and outlets reporting on the release list prices at $79.95 for the Artifact and Zune knits, with the Xbox design available to pre-order for roughly $59.95. Early coverage notes limited quantities and a quick move toward sellouts, so sizes are already sparse in some places.

This isn’t Microsoft’s first rodeo with festive kitsch. The company first started sending out bespoke “ugly” sweaters to fans in 2018 and opened sales to the public in 2020; the designs since have become a small seasonal ritual for people who remember Windows XP and the halcyon days of skeuomorphic media players. There was no official sweater in 2024, making this year’s return feel a bit like a reunion tour. The broad arc — limited drops, throwback themes, quick sellouts — is familiar, but the 2025 iteration arrives amid bigger conversations about Microsoft’s identity in the AI era, which is why the Copilot cameo landed oddly for some observers.

Reaction has been predictably mixed. Plenty of folks on social feeds are treating the drop like a treasure hunt: hunt down your size, wear it ironically to a party, or frame it and call it “modern textile performance art.” But a strain of critique has also crept into tech coverage: some writers argue that weaving a Copilot logo into a sweater meant to be a fond look back at consumer products reads like product placement in a nostalgia museum. Others shrug — it’s a sweater, after all — and point out that as marketing moves, the drop is harmless and charming.

Beyond the jokes about pixel art and questionable color choices, the sweaters are a useful little lens on how big tech manages its own history. A knitted montage that includes both MS-DOS and Copilot says: we made mistakes, we made hits, and we’re still trying to shape what comes next — sometimes awkwardly, sometimes with genuine affection. Plus, for Microsoft, the sweaters are a tidy piece of brand storytelling: they turn corporate memory into merch you can wear to an office party and, if you play it right, tweet a photo of.

If you’re thinking of buying one, don’t sleep on the logistics: sizes are limited, the Zune and Artifact sweaters sit at the higher price point, and the Xbox knit is the one Microsoft positioned as easier to preorder. Expect shipping windows to vary (some reporting suggests the Xbox pre-order ships mid-December), and don’t be surprised if a few designs sell out quickly — this is the kind of collectible that vanishes from company shelves faster than you can say “Clippy.”

At the end of the day, Microsoft’s ugly sweaters are exactly what they look like: a little silly, mildly tactical, and totally comfortable as a cultural touchstone. Whether you want to wear a tiny Copilot badge over your heart or repulse and delight your relatives with Zune brown, there’s now a knit for that — and for better or worse, Microsoft has stitched a few more of its stories into the fabric.