Will Christmas tree sales light up retail?

Americans might not be rushing to the stores like they used to for the holidays, but Christmas tree lots are a different story.

Since 2003, Oscar Sloterbeck of Evercore ISI has been surveying regional Christmas tree associations, farmers and retailers to gauge the strength of the holiday shopping season. The insight, which came from a money manager whose family owned a Christmas tree farm, was that if people were willing to spring for a nice Christmas tree, or wreaths and garlands, they probably were ready to spend more on presents.

The good news is that sales have been strong this year. In the first week of the survey—the one including Thanksgiving and the Black Friday shopping weekend—they rose 10% from a year earlier, and in the second week they were up 12 percent. Evercore ISI will release its third update on Tuesday.

But the bad news for retailers is that Americans’ enthusiasm to deck the halls doesn’t seem to be extending to the malls. Mr. Sloterbeck’s surveys of retailers aren’t nearly as buoyant. The weekly reading on chain-store sales jointly produced by the Retail Economist and Goldman Sachs, also set to be updated Tuesday, could be similarly muted.

Click here to read more.