New Haven has many glorious shops to choose from for Holiday-time gifting, so if you are stuck here till the 23rd or some other ridiculous date, you need not go home empty handed. But if you need a reason to go brick-and-mortar rather than doing all your shopping on ebay or whatever, the City of New Haven is here for you. From a couple weeks ago until early January, every $50 you spend gets you a free drink voucher, redeemable for a $9 ‘beverage’ at one of any of New Haven’s classiest establishments—116 Crown and Heirloom included. If you spend $100, you get a voucher for a free movie at the Criterion (as if anyone would choose that over the drink…).

But if you’re strapped for cash, and won’t be able to make it to the minimum threshhold, there’s help right over at the Yale bookstore—you can sell your books to them for a mere fraction of what you paid. To be honest, it isn’t all that lucrative unless you’re like, an Electrical Engineering major and have really expensive books, but if you’re an Electrical Engineering major, you probably don’t read the Bullblog, so just go ahead and do your thing. Still, despite the relatively low sums, if you aren’t planning on re-reading your ConBio textbook, just take the $15 and run. The other option for book sales is Belltower Books, where student-salesmen come to your dormroom and take your books directly from you, but I’ve found they don’t pay as much as the book store. Also, I always wonder where they sell the books!

NB: When I was at the bookstore selling stuff, I noticed they have a limited-time only 20% off sale for students; Labyrinth has the same. So if your parents or siblings can read, you have a solid option. True, it’s not Amazon prices, but Amazon doesn’t give you a free drink for every $50 you spend!