It is Monday, the 26th of December. Boxing Day. And that means only one thing. The sales have started!

Brave the thronging crowds as you're jostled every which way, standing in long queues and trying to figure out what is left on jumbled shelves and racks? Not on your nelly. I have far too many traumatic childhood memories of shops on this day of the year for that. My mum's family believed in getting all the crackers, cards and wrapping paper for next year's Christmas on Boxing day.

I'm shuddering just thinking of it.

Thank goodness for the internet. Seriously. I'm sitting here kissing my screen right at this moment. I can do all my shopping sat at the dining table with a tin of Quality Street on one side and a big pop of freshly brewed coffee on the other. From the smells and sizzles wafting out of the kitchen my husband is making bacon sandwiches for lunch. Who would want to leave this?

According to the internet trade body IMRG, we were going to spend £550 million on Christmas Day and Boxing Day online this year. It will be interesting to see if reality meets the expectations. Apparently many stores started their sales early online, on Christmas Eve, taking advantage of the lack of opening hours on the internet.

Our sister site, HUKD, has a brilliant Boxing Day Dashboard, where you can see all the latest and best deals available at a glance. Be quick though, they won't last long!

Read on to find out about some of the sales you won't want to miss, all of which are either just starting today or with newly added items/stock. The focus is on treats for mum, and for dad too. I'm betting that the chances are, you don't tend to buy nice things for yourself. Well in the sales, you can do just that, guilt free.

Click here to read more...

Use this USC promotional code to get 20% off your order. It only applies to full price items I'm afraid. But lovely if mum or dad is looking to treat themselves to a little bit of retail therapy. They've some lovely men's items too, so may be worth keeping in mind for Father's Day in June.

Click here to use your 20% USC promotional code

• Discount: 20%
• Promotional code: MVCMAY
• Expires: 28th May 2011

To use the code, go to the Basket/Checkout. Enter it in the box under 'Do you have a promotional code'? I tried it first on a pair of jeans from the sale. Well, I just wanted to see if it might work on sale items after all. However, while the discount code was accepted, it simply said that I would see the code applied at checkout. I went all the way through to the final page of the checkout, but it did not appear.

Next I tried it out on a full price item, a Yumi Shift Dress (£35). This time the code was applied immediately on my order. It was listed as 'Coupon MVCMAY Applied'. It took £7 off my order, reducing the price of the dress to £28.

Standard delivery on the site is £2.99 for two to three days, or £4.50 for one to two days.

Thanks to nihalvyas at HUKD!

Use this code to get 25% off clothing and shoes, including kids shoes, with USC. The company specialises in retailing branded clothing, and as well as an online presence has 35 high street stores in the north of England and Scotland.

Click here to get 25% off USC clothing and kids shoes

• Discount: 25%
• Promotional code: LIKEUSC25
• Expiry: 8th November 2010

To use this code, go to the Your Bag page, and enter it in the Promotional Code box. It's applied automatically, although if like me you've got a small screen you might need to scroll down the page a bit. At first I thought it hadn't worked! I tried it out on a pair of Adidas ADI Tennis Kids Trainers, and it gave me a £5.75 discount from the £23 pricetag.

I didn't go through the checkout entirely though because I don't go for brands. But if you're after something like that, this is a fairly good deal. The site does shoes for kids but it only does ladies and mens clothing.

Unlike other 25% codes for the site, it does work on G-Star items (I tested this) and according to the poseter at HUKD others as well. It does not, however, work on sale items.

Thanks to DarrylJohn at HUKD!