Merchants Attribute 'High Sales' To Wide Choice of Xmas Goods

Many Harvard Square merchants feel that there is more Christmas shopping in the area than ever before. The owner of one store said, "The students are doing their shopping in Cambridge, and buying higher quality goods."

Loues Kane, of the College Shop, had two sellouts--whiskey-flavored toothpaste and a clay figure called "Zulu Booboo, the Goddess of Fertility." In the dentifrice department, the bourbon flavor is the most popular.

An anonymous Coop salesgirl says that last Christmas' most popular gift, cocktail sets, are being outsold by smoked glassware and electric frypans.

Liquor is a steady seller. "Everything goes at Christmastime," said a Varsity Liquor Shop clerk, pointing to the newly filled shelves. A Harvard Provisions salesman called Jack Daniels Sour Mash popular. "And we can't get enough of it," he added.

Explaining the increase in clothing sales, Stonestreet's Fred Shaw declared, "Right now Ivy is the style of the nation, and the shoppers know it." Flannel night shirts, matching male-female sport shirts, and "6-footer scarves" are large sellers. But most of the shops found that English Challis ties were the most called for item. "Our customers like colors, but they like them subdued."

Increased clothing sales, however, have not had a good effect on all of the Square's merchants. Mr. Jack, at the College Point Tailors, which rents formal wear, finds that his business is falling. "Most of the boys have their own tuxedos this year, many more than ever before," he explained.

Bookstore owners noted no single type of book as the most popular. Their bestsellers were "The Art of Loving," by Eric Fromm, "Views of Harvard," "Don Quixote," Fred Allen's "Much Ado About Me" and "Dylan Thomas' Poems."