In a report released earlier this week, the Commerce Department announced weaker than anticipated growth in U.S. retail sales for the month of November — the leading edge of the holiday shopping season many businesses view as a year-end "make it or break it" proposition, bolstered largely by the volume of Black Friday sales.

Some economists had forecast as much as a 0.5 percent or more gain over October, but November's numbers came in at a disappointing 0.2 percent growth in retail sales. While some retailers nationally have reported solid increases over November 2010 figures, even a big box like Target Corp. came up far short of its estimates.

It all adds up to a slew of mixed signals, something echoed here locally in Lake Norman's small business community.

Reflecting a national trend, anecdotal reports are that boutique-type retail shops in the region have either held their own or even showed modest gains over last year's holiday shopping season. The same cannot be said, however, for other nearby retailers and dining establishments.

"It's really a mixed bag of information, depending on the business type," says Joe Vagnone of Cornelius-based Carolina Business Associates, LLC. Vagnone is a business broker and advisor, who spent the days following Black Friday talking to local small business owners about how things are stacking up compared to last year's holiday sales.

"A good estimate is that 65 to 75 percent are flat to down from last year," he says. "That's not a good sign, because last year wasn't a good year, either."

According to Vagnone, sales figures from 2007 are really the numbers to beat, or at least match. That was the most recent high point for local retailers, but given the current economic climate, the chances of area small businesses hitting those sales marks this year are about as good as hitting every green light on N.C. 73 between Cornelius and the Walmart in Denver.

"The confidence level of small business owners is absolutely negative," says Vagnone. And as ugly as it is to face, he's right. You can hear it in their voices.

"We're flat, if not a little below last year," says John Filar, owner of Tennis ... everyone! in Cornelius' Jetton Village. Despite running deep daily discounts this holiday season on his assortment of tennis apparel, shoes and equipment, Filar says it's been slow, and competing with the double-whammy of the convenience of online shopping and the even larger sales events at big-name stores has made it rough going.

Open for more than five years now, Filar says the first few years of his foray into small business ownership were very good. Since then, however, with the tanking of the economy, he's digging deeper each year into his pockets to keep his shop going, especially through the next few months, when he's at the mercy of mercurial Mother Nature.

"The last two winters have been exceptionally cruel to us," Filar says about what he thinks have been the wettest, coldest winters he can remember in his 24 years in the area.

"We have to have a big enough (sales) push here in December to make it through January and February."

That bump in sales, or at least foot traffic, is something Jeff McMurry of Carolina Diamond in Huntersville says he should have felt long before now if he had any hopes of a successful holiday shopping season.

McMurry says his typical clientele, especially those shopping for big-ticket pieces, usually begin to explore their options and price ranges in November, but those shoppers never materialized.

"It didn't happen," he says plainly.

Open since 2003, he says his jewelry store on Old Statesville Road saw a steady demand in sales until things started to pull back in 2007. The following year was worse, he says, and things have steadily declined since, as the price of gold has skyrocketed while disposable income has plummeted.

McMurry says the price of gold per ounce has risen from about $650 in 2007 to $1,700 this month. Aside from the obvious rise in his costs the gold price jump has caused, he says even his repair work has dropped off the radar. Customers have decided it's more advantageous to their wallets to scrap their damaged gold items than to fix them.

McMurry also owns Micky's Bistro next door, a moderately priced, nicely appointed neighborhood bar and restaurant heading into its second full year of operation. He says not only are his gold prices going through the roof, his food costs have gone up significantly, especially meat and fish.

He's cutting corners where he can — doing his own shopping at discount outlets for some of his supplies and food products rather than relying on more expensive, albeit convenient, food service companies. He says the steady stream of diners that usually peaks once the kids return to school in September, then remains steady through Valentine's Day, has yet to materialize.

He's not the only restaurant owner to feel the hit of less and less walking-around money in people's pockets. Dining out is by and large a luxury, and it's one many consumers are shelving in favor of other costs and concerns.

"Most restaurants are down substantially," says Vagnone, but one local restaurant owner — Jay Hill at Café 100 in Huntersville — probably framed it best for all of them.

"It's terrible," he says.

While Filar, McMurry, Hill and their colleagues in the local economy are peddling different wares, when you ask them what they think the root cause of their small biz woes might be, their responses are eerily similar.

As if on cue, with the same shake of the head and a deep breath, their one-word response creeps into each conversation.

Uncertainty.

"People just don't know what it's gonna be," says Tony Stafford, proprietor of Ferrucci's Old Tyme Italian Market in the Shops on the Green in Cornelius.

What "it" is, is the future of the economy, and Stafford is specifically referring to consumer concerns over their future tax burden. That uncertainty has bred a type of fiscal fear that has tightened shoppers' purse strings and tested the resolve of even a veteran business owner like Stafford.

He says from the time he opened his shop 12 years ago, he had always shown a double-digit percentage increase in sales year-over-year.

"Until 2008," he says. In terms of conventional wisdom, that may very well be the year that many business owners ultimately mark as their economic watershed.

"Two-thousand nine was down, too, and it was down big."

That drastic pullback has Stafford and others adjusting the prism through which they assess their economic performance. Where once they may have needed to see the steady sinus rhythm of their business' beating heart — the natural peaks and valleys of a retail year — now they're not even shocked when the "patient" begins to flat-line.

"Flat is the new up," Stafford says. "As long as you're staying flat and you're not going down, you're doing good in this economy."

And Stafford is apparently living what he preaches. He says although his holiday season sales have not been as robust as he'd hoped, he's up overall for the year by about 10 percent. Some of that may be attributable to his shop's longevity and strong local customer base, but Stafford says it may have something to do with his inventory.

"When things are good, people eat steak. When things are bad, they eat hamburger," he says.

"I carry both."