Holiday Time, Plus A Shopping Tip

What's that? No new posts since last Saturday? Well, yeah, I know. But it's a busy time. Stuff needs to be done, and errands don't do themselves. Kids have birthdays. The Mrs. is participating in a holiday craft market, so she's been cranking out baby quilts for the past several weekends and is dropping them off today. Then this evening we're off to Rhode Island, but only for about 24 hours, because she unfortunately has to work Friday.

I do have Friday off, and it's possible I've sustained a blow to the head because I'm considering going into Boston that day. I seriously dislike crowds and I can't remember the last time I actually ventured out to shop on Black Friday, but I've been wanting to get to Newbury Comics for a while and haven't had the opportunity. I used to be able to pop into the downtown store fairly easily on my way home from work, but since they moved over to Qunicy Market a couple of months ago, it's somewhat less convenient to do that. So I'm thinking I'll head into the city for a few hours on Friday to take the pulse of the shopping public, so to speak, and report back about any especially juicy bargains I find.

For now I can pass along a web shopping tip for one of my new favorite stores, Martin + Osa. Through December 1st, all cashmere sweaters, men's and women's, are $79. That's almost an end-of-season price. The brand is from the same parent company as American Eagle but is positioned as an older sibling. The clothes I've bought from them thus far are of above-average quality, in my fairly knowledgeable opinion, certainly better than what AE sells. The style is more grown-up too, more or less splitting the difference between Banana Republic and J. Crew. And who doesn't love cashmere?

Update, 10 PM: Psst, this deal just got sweeter. I got a little holiday mailer from M+O today, and if you use the code 52216266 on the site, you'll get 30% off your order through December 24th. So that would make a cashmere sweater $56, which is a stupidly good deal.