Annual sales growth, Christmas 2001

Hamleys: 12.1% HMV: 12% Arcadia: 9.4% Matalan: 9.2% Next: 9% M&S: 8.3% Selfridges: 8% House of Fraser: 7.2% Sainsburys: 6.4% Tesco: 6.2% Dixons: 4% Laura Ashley: 0 Iceland: -4.2% NB: Not all figures refer to same period.

Most of the UK's leading High Street names have shrugged off recessionary fears, enjoying a year-end at worst encouraging, at best sensational.

In terms of sales, it has been the best Christmas since - take your pick, but the Confederation of British Industry says 1987, while the British Retail Consortium says 1996.

Almost no one thinks the current mood can last.

But the British consumer - plucky or perverse, depending on your point of view - seems to have a habit of defying economic logic.

Winners and losers

Not that the seasonal success has been uniformly distributed.

Mobile phone sales have slumped this season

As big retailers have dribbled out their Christmas trading updates over the past few days, it has become clear that some are doing hugely better than others.

With this year's top Christmas presents being opulent hi-tech items such as DVD players and wide-screen TVs, electronics retailers ought to have done well.

HMV also benefited, with DVD and computer games sales up sharply but a drastic slowing down in mobile phone sales has battered performance at firms like Dixons.

Clothes and toys, meanwhile, have been unequivocally hot sellers, powering the balance sheets of firms such as Marks & Spencer, Next and Arcadia (the firm behind Top Shop, Burton and others).

Happy holidays

Overall, retail sales this Christmas were up 5-7% year on year, depending on precisely what period constitutes the holiday season.

Hamleys' Simon Burke cheers the toy boom

That's three times the pace of growth in the overall economy, and comes at a time when many high-profile retailers are suffering from the slump in the number of visitors to the UK.

Well-known retailers such as Harrods, Laura Ashley, Selfridges and Harvey Nichols are especially sensitive to the fluctuations of the tourist trade.

"However well these shops did this season, they would have done so much better if it hadn't been for the tourist crisis," says Richard Hyman, chairman of retail consultancy Verdict Research.

Time for a slowdown?

But how long can it last?

Although tourism numbers are likely to bounce back this year, other factors are tipped to make this shopping year far worse than 2001.

Oxford Street is booming, but for how long?

First, the relentless fall in interest rates has already come to a halt, and may even reverse as the year goes on.

This could cool the housing market - the main cushion under Britons' feeling of prosperity - as well as make credit-card spending less attractive.

The British are the most credit-happy in Europe, with some �40bn in plastic debts outstanding.

As the economic clouds gather, analysts increasingly predict that the current credit binge could end in a nasty hangover.

(Irrational) exuberance

But reports of the death of British consumerism have been greatly exaggerated in the past.

The media have been abuzz with talk of recession for at least half a year, and especially so since 11 September - but shoppers keep on shopping.

Indications from the January sales point towards even brisker business than was seen before Christmas.

Consumers, says Richard Hyman, could not care less about gloomy economic prognoses.

"If someone is doing well themselves, they are not going to stop shopping in sympathy with others faring worse than they are," he says.

"People only really start modifying their behaviour when the economy directly affects them - when they lose their job, for example."

Given the doom and gloom in the business pages, it might seem to make sense to rein in spending a bit at present.

But when it comes to shopping, sense and logic don't play much of a role.