The advance report on January retail sales was pretty good, if you don't count auto purchases.  From Forbes.com:

Retail spending, hurt by a falloff in auto sales, dipped slightly in January, but demand stayed strong in other areas as people rushed to the malls with their Christmas gift cards.

The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that overall retail sales dipped 0.3 percent last month following a huge 1.1 percent increase in December.

However, both months were heavily influenced by a big swing in demand for autos. Car sales soared 4 percent in December as dealers offered attractive incentives to clear out a backlog of unsold cars. But in January, with less attractive incentive packages, car sales fell by 3.3 percent.

Excluding the volatile car sector, retail sales rose by a stronger-than-expected 0.6 percent in January, double December's 0.3 percent gain outside of autos.

Apparently they weren't kidding about that gift card thing.

Analysts said part of January's strength reflected people redeeming their Christmas gift cards. A survey by Deloitte & Touche USA found the average adult received 3.2 gift cards in the holiday season just ended, up from 2.5 gift cards in 2003. The survey estimated that the redemption of gift cards pumped up retail sales by nearly $18 billion during December and January.

Meanwhile, if you have been worrying about bubbles in the housing market, the Forbes article had some bad news for you.

...the National Association of Realtors said many metropolitan areas saw sizable increases in home prices for the final three months of 2004. The group's survey showed a record 62 areas recorded double-digit increases in the median price of homes sold in the fourth quarter of last year when compared with the same period in 2003.

The gains were led by a 47.3 percent jump in Las Vegas, Nev., which pushed the median price of a home there - the point where half sold for more and half for less - to $281,400. Nationally, the median price for an existing home rose by 8.8 percent to $187,500 in the final three months of last year.

You can find the NAR report here.

UPDATE: More on the NAR report here, at Calculated Risk.