I try not to get sucked into following holiday retail sales. It seems (could be wrong) that every year we get initial reports of cautious optimism by retailers followed by stories of doom and gloom capped off with the final it was pretty good after all narrative.
For those concerned about the fortunes of retailers, the sales data don't mean much anyway as they don't tell us anything about just how low prices were cut to get those sales.
Still if this data is to be believed, sales fell in real terms this year. Perhaps we're winning the war on Christmas after all!