I did this last year and the year before, so why not make a habit of it?  I get no commissions; these are mostly places I’ve shopped or plan to shop.   It’s based on “This would be SO COOL to have”, and nothing else.

General:

Nerditry: Newegg, ThinkGeek, Leatherman Wave, ISC.org (see 9-layer OSI model shirt).

Science: American Science and Surplus, Ward’s Scientific, Carolina, and United Nuclear. 

Creepy: Bone Room,  Skulls Unlimited, or Skullduggery.

BSDs:

There are FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD stores, where money goes back to the project.

Bookwise, Jeremy C. Reed publishes a number of BSD–related books.  Buy his stuff through Amazon.  There’s also No Starch Press, which has a number of BSD publications.  (and LEGO, too?)  And of course O’Reilly, for a bunch of things.

Nice things to do:

The FreeBSD Foundation is having an end-of-year appeal for funds, so you can donate in someone’s name.    The NetBSD Foundation probably accepts donations, though I don’t have a specific page to link to for that.

Donations to the Itojun Service Award fund are also a good thing.

Everything else I could think of:

• MAKE Magazine subscriptions
• SparkFun Electronics (I want one of their Port-O-Rotary phones),
• Topatoco shirts and books
• Klein bottles
• RLT.com (check out the many subsites linked there)

Further suggestions welcome, especially for European shoppers.  I’ve been slowly growing this list year-to-year, and I can always use more interesting and unique places.

Update: George Rosamond pointed at DealExtreme.com.  There are some crazy cheap prices there.

Also, and I can’t believe I didn’t link to this before: Brando.  If you’re looking for something with a USB port, Brando has it.  Even if it’s a jeweled scorpion necklace… USB drive.