The pollsters weren't wrong this time. When it came to the holiday shopping season, consumers voted as cautiously as many prognosticators had forecast -- and the nation's retailers had feared.

December sales results poured in yesterday from retail chains selling everything from clothes to jewelry to perfume to toys. The picture that emerged showed consumers avoiding many stores early last month, then turning out for discounts offered closer to Christmas that still didn't drive enough sales to make up for the slow start.

Department store operator Macy's posted a deeper-than-expected dip of 7.9 percent in sales at established stores, while discounter Target showed a 5 percent drop and South Side specialty retailer American Eagle Outfitters reported a 2 percent decrease.

Even combining results from November and December to factor out the impact of an early Thanksgiving didn't change the overall picture. The two-month period produced a sales gain of 2.2 percent, the weakest showing in five years, according to trade group International Council of Shopping Centers, which tallies results from 45 retail chains.

"The retail numbers leave little doubt that shoppers are in belt-tightening mode," said Frank Badillo, senior economist with Columbus, Ohio-based consulting firm Retail Forward. "No part of retail spending is immune right now."

A rush of gift card spending in January isn't likely to dramatically change the big picture, said Steven Baumgarten, an analyst with PNC Capital Advisors in Philadelphia. He said gift cards made up a smaller percentage of holiday sales this year than last year, and that the impact would probably be minimal.

Retail sales growth could continue to decelerate this year, he said, unless the Federal Reserve becomes much more aggressive with lower interest rates. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke signaled yesterday that such action might be coming.

National forecasts, starting last fall, had generally been conservative for the critical holiday shopping season in light of increasing pressure on household budgets from high gas prices, rising food costs and problems in the housing market. While the Pittsburgh region wasn't hit significantly by drops in home prices, consumers here aren't immune from rising concerns about a possible recession.

Retailers seemed quite willing to blame outside forces. Macy's Chairman Terry J. Lundgren cited "macroeconomic trends" in his assessment of why his customers spent cautiously over the holiday.

Kohl's Chairman Larry Montgomery described his customers as looking for value, and said they responded well to promotions closer to Christmas and after the holiday. The retailer has been aggressively offering deeper discounts to clear out the unsold goods, a move that could affect its profit margin.

For those trying to determine how much of the problem was the economy and how much came from lackluster merchandise, it didn't help that holiday season numbers were muddied by quirks in the calendar. The early Thanksgiving meant some sales that might typically have come during the December reporting period moved into November reports.

Kohl's, for example, reported an 11.4 percent drop in December sales at stores that had been open at least a year. Adjusting for the calendar shift, the chain would have seen just a 0.7 percent dip. Target's 5 percent drop would have been a 0.6 percent increase.

Still, there seemed to be larger forces at work. Overall, consumers seemed reluctant to spend much on jewelry, clothing or larger items for homes, although blasts of chilly weather through December helped move sweaters and other seasonal merchandise.

An early emphasis on offering low prices helped Wal-Mart. In addition, officials there said a same-store sales gain of more than 2 percent reflected sales to customers who might have come to the discounter's stores to buy food and then picked up additional items.

Perhaps they were trying to save on gas by condensing their shopping trips. Costco Wholesale Corp. noted that a 27 percent increase in the average sales price for a gallon of gas during the month boosted results for the membership warehouse club, which has fuel stations in its parking lots. Costco reported a same-store sales gain of 7 percent.

Those troubled by quiet aisles would have found a little old-fashioned shopping frenzy had they headed to the electronics department. Such video game systems as the Nintendo Wii, game software, iPhones, GPS devices and flat panel TVs were hot, said Mr. Baumgarten.

GameStop Corp., a video game retailer out of Grapevine, Texas, was one of the few retailers raising earnings guidance yesterday. Both GameStop and Toys R Us gave a shout out to the Wii and to the "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock" game from Activision.

For the next few weeks, malls online and off may be dominated by such discounts as the "up to 60 percent off" winter clearance sale that took up most of American Eagle's home Web page yesterday and the 50 percent-off deals at KBToys.com.

While there appear to be more markdowns at this point than there were last year, Mr. Baumgarten said they didn't seem to reflect panic. In fact, clearing out might be the right strategy.

"For those retailers that have excess inventories though, it may be a wise move to get aggressive with markdowns so that they can begin to bring in new, fresh spring merchandise," he said.

If any retailers do benefit from gift card spending this month, he said it might be consumer electronic retailers such as Best Buy and teen apparel retailers such as Abercrombie & Fitch and American Eagle, which is scheduled to bring in its first major spring assortment on Jan. 22.