Outfit Of The Week 11/9/25 – 11/15/25

This week’s edition of “OOTW” features an outfit I wore to an early Thanksgiving celebration with my wife’s side of the family.

We needed to drive a few hours to reach my in-laws’ house which meant I needed to wear something comfortable for a long-ish drive.

Also, there were going to be a ton of children there so dark-colored or easily launderable items were a must.

Lastly, I wanted to wear a tie.

Taken all together, the outfit you see here is what I came up with.

The shirt was a roomy OCBD from Lands’ End. The sweater was my Aran cable-knit cardigan. The pants were navy chinos. The shoes were Bass Weejuns. And the tie was a rust-colored, wool tie that I bought in Ireland many years ago.

This outfit brought to mind a few old articles of mine.

The first was my article about how the shawl-collar cardigan is a fantastic winter layer for the holiday season because it essentially replaces a sport coat for those more relaxed occasions.

The second was my article about how it’s important to be easy to shop for. The reason I bring up this article is because the sweater and chinos were gifts that my in-laws had purchased for me in the past few years. It’s always important to use the gifts people give you, which is why I wanted to wear those two items to their house to show them how much I appreciate the gifts and the fact that they got them for me.

The third was an article about having holiday traditions to help your kids remember and cherish special days. I decided to wear a tie, even though it was just to my in-laws’ house, because I wanted my kids to see that I was marking the day as “special”.

Another point about the cardigan… even though it’s light-colored and not easily washable, it’s a good item to wear around the kids since it’s speckled pattern hides stains easily. It’s also great to wear at a holiday meal since it can be easily removed and put back on again if the temperature in the house fluctuates due to things like cooking or having the back door open while the kids run outside.

All in all, we had a lovely celebration and I looking to many more like it that dot the calendar in the coming weeks.

Have a wonderful weekend!