• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, January 14, 2010

Retail executives wrapped up their annual convention in New York with a little bit of good news: The National Retail Federation says that the 2009 holiday season finished up 1.1%, at $446.8 billion. Back in October, the Washington, D.C.-based trade group had forecast a 1% decline. In 2008, when the holiday shopping period coincided somewhat with the stock market's meltdown, sales fell 3.4%.

"With an eye on managing inventory and maintaining lower price points, retailers did a tremendous job of planning for the holiday season," NRF Chief Economist Rosalind Wells says in a statement. "While the consumer appears to be spending again, double-digit unemployment numbers will remain an impediment to maintaining this momentum."

Clothes led the comeback, with apparel jumping 7% in December, while sporting goods, hobby, book and music stores increased by 3.9%. Health and personal care stores turned in gains of 4.8% for December. But the pain continued for furniture and home furnishing stores decreasing 3.5% from December 2008.

ShopperTrak, which measures traffic in shopping centers, also released numbers that were ahead of forecasts this week. It says sales for November and December rose 1.7%, while customer counts fell and customer counts slipped 2.9%. Initially, it had projected a 1.6% sales gain, but a much steeper -- 4.2% -- falloff in traffic.

But the NRF's numbers, which exclude automobiles, gas stations, and food services, offered a slightly rosier view than the December numbers just released by the U.S. Census Bureau. The government's figures include automobile, gasoline and food and beverage sales, and show December retail sales actually fell 0.3% from the prior month.

The NRF also announced that it elected Terry J. Lundgren, Chairman, Macy's president/CEO, as chairman of its board of directors, succeeding JC Penney CEO Myron E. Ullman, III.