The weekend following Thanksgiving is probably the most important of the whole US retailing¹ year.

感恩节之后的周末或许是本年度美国零售业最重要的一个周末。

The traditional start to the shopping season kicks off enthusiastically

The amount of money shelled out（付款，交付） at the shops this weekend hit $41.2bn (£25bn) - a rise of 0.5% on 2008.

Even so, credit-crunched Americans spent around 8% less each than normal, an average of $343, in the days following last Thursday's holiday.

The total was higher because more of them - 195 million - shopped either online or by going out to stores.

The figures come from the largest retail² trade organisation⁴ in the world, the National Retailers⁵ Association, a body that illustrates⁷（举例说明，图解） why we call the United States a consumer society.

Its members employ 24 million people - around one in five US workers.

Shoppers at dawn

Thanksgiving began as a harvest celebration. It was formerly⁸ a Christian⁹ festibal and became a secular¹⁰（世俗的，现世的） holiday in the 1940s.

There is no mistaking the big event these days. The National Retail Federation¹¹ reported that a third of those who made a trip to the shops were there before 5am.

Those who stayed at home also did their bit for the consumer sector¹² that makes up 70% of the US economy.

The Analytics firm Comscore said on Sunday that US online spending on Black Friday hit a record $595m, a rise of 11% compared with a year earlier.

Shares in the giant online retailer⁶ Amazon hit an all time high in Monday trading.

Discounting is always a big part of the holiday season, but analysts¹³ said retailers had done a good job of keeping stock levels in line, so they had not been forced into desperate price cuts like in 2008. That should help margins¹⁴ improve, at least compared with a year ago, they suggested.

"Ultimately, what we wanted to see was flat or better sales and that's what we got. You've got to remember the discounts were far fewer and less," said Marc Pado, a US market strategist（战略家） at Cantor Fitzgerald in San Francisco.

Economists¹⁵ and analysts are watching the holiday shopping season to see how much consumers have been affected¹⁶ by recession, high unemployment and the credit crunch³（信用紧缩）.

Investors¹⁷ will now look for a clearer picture of the month when retailers release November sales later this week.