Procrastinators will get a bonus this year: an entire weekend to shop in the final hours leading up to Christmas. And retailers are ready and eager.

"That Friday-Saturday combination will be pretty powerful in terms of additional spending by consumers," said Wayne Best, an economist for credit card company Visa USA.

Best predicted that Dec. 23 would be the busiest shopping day of the year, followed closely by Friday the 22nd.

But even nine days before the holiday, retailers across the nation are in last-minute mode with a first round of last-minute bargains.

The National Retail Federation, the industry's largest trade group, estimated Thursday that about half the consumers had completed their holiday shopping.

"Obviously, aggressive promotions will be everywhere," said Ellen Davis, spokeswoman for the retail trade group in Washington.

April Luna likes the way retailers slash prices during crunch time when push, sometimes literally, comes to shove.

"I do last-minute shopping," said Luna, 33, a resident of Huntington Beach, Calif., who works for Best Buy Co. "I go for the sales."

Some Southern California retailers already have dusted off their 50 percent and 75 percent signs, while others are trying new enticements to pull shoppers into stores.

But as far as Britt Beemer is concerned, retailers aren't doing enough to please shoppers. The chairman of America's Research Group said his polls showed that consumers were disappointed that there weren't more "big deals" being offered this year.

"They may be satisfying Wall Street," he said of retailers, "but Main Street's going to be very unhappy."

Many stores and malls are just following the drill of previous years. And there's no guarantee that the weekend at the end of the shopping season will be a boon to retailers.

The previous three times Christmas fell on a Monday, the pace of sales growth actually slowed in the combined months of November and December, compared with the average gain in the first 10 months of the year, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. The economy was in a slowdown in all three of those years: 1989, 1995 and 2000, said Michael Niemira, chief economist for the shopping center group.

Indicators so far show that retailers will enjoy solid though not extraordinary sales this season.

The National Retail Federation predicts that sales will rise 5 percent to $457.4 billion, compared with a 6.1 percent increase in 2005. Holiday sales are particularly important for retailers, who collect 20 percent to 40 percent of their annual revenues during the months of November and December. They also are an important indicator for the economy. Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the nation's economy.

The indicators of how the season is playing out so far vary, depending on how the numbers are tallied.

Sales at stores open for a year or more advanced only 2.1 percent last month, down from a 3.8 percent gain in November 2005, according to the shopping center group. Excluding a decline at Wal-Mart, the industry recorded a 4 percent increase last month.

Using a broader measure from the Commerce Department, retail sales, excluding auto and gasoline, rose a better-than-expected 6.4 percent, compared with the previous year. That growth pace was better than October's 5.5 percent increase, but slower than any other month this year. The average advance for the first nine months of the year was 7.7 percent.

"There's been a downshift in spending by consumers since the summer months," said Best, of Visa, which tracks spending on credit cards. "The first 10 days of December it appears that people are getting back into that holiday spending mood. We've seen upticks in nearly all categories."