A downturn in the economy doesn't appear to have kept Canadian consumers away from their favourite shopping destinations this holiday season.

Moneris Solutions, a credit card and debt processing company, released its 2008 holiday season data on Friday, with some findings that may be surprising.

According to Moneris, consumer spending showed some resilience during the Christmas season -- and some spending categories even showed dramatic growth.

Canadians continued to spend during the holiday season, Brian Green, vice president of marketing for Moneris, told CTV News.

According to Moneris, the number of transactions actually rose over the previous year, and the company says the data offers merchants and consumers a reliable pulse of the Canadian economy.

"We saw that there was a big response to specialty stores, electronics stores, sporting goods (and) jewellery stores," Green told CTV News in Toronto.

According to Moneris, nationally in the 2008 holiday season:

• Department stores saw the amount of money charged to credit and debit cards climb by nine per cent over the same time last year.
• Apparel stores had a six per cent growth in credit and debit card sales.
• Every major merchant category experienced spikes in consumer spending on credit and debit cards from the second to the third week of December.
• Only electronics retailers sustained growth into December's final Boxing Day week, with national sales rising 17 per cent from the previous week.
• Restaurants prolonged their mid-December spike with a healthy increase of eight per cent in the last week of the month.

However, the restaurant industry also reported business was down overall by about six per cent for the month compared to December 2007.

"Drug stores and jewelry retailers were the least volatile performers in December 2008, down just 1.5 and one per cent respectively from last December," according to a Moneris press release.

"Nationally, all merchants pulled in two per cent more in the month of December compared to the same time last year, and seven per cent more in the final week alone, ending what began as a pessimistic holiday season on a relatively bright note."

However, discount stores failed to live up to the growth predicted by some retail analysts. Instead, the newly released data shows that:

They suffered a decline of 11 per cent in credit and debit card dollar volume.

Their wholesale counterparts had a substantial decline of nine per cent.

The average ticket size of each transaction across all merchant categories decreased by three per cent.

"The department stores and the apparel stores and the specialty stores worked really hard to get consumers into their stores by offering discounts, by being smart in promotion and by making sure that their store operations will top notch," Green told CTV's Canada AM on Friday morning.

Consumers favoured these stores in most cases, because they ended up with even better deals than wholesale and discount stores could provide, he said.

While Green said successful Canadian retailers presented offers that consumers "couldn't refuse," the same practice couldn't keep U.S. retailers afloat.

"I think that what retailers did successfully in Canada is they got people to come out and spend," Green told Canada AM.

"Canadian retailers were innovative, they were adaptive, they did get consumers to come out and consumers were strong enough to go and spend," he added.

South of the border, this was the worst holiday shopping season in four decades, with sales down 2.2 per cent overall.

Even Walmart, the world's largest retailer, was hurt by stores closures from winter snowstorms and lower consumer spending. The company is forecasting flat sales figures for 2009.

Economist Robert Warren says he doubts Canadian levels will reach the lows being experienced in the U.S. But he warns that Canadians "will see a slowdown."

While Canadian consumers have become accustomed to discounts, economists say retailers cannot afford to keep slashing prices. Once the Christmas inventory is gone, consumers can expect prices to creep up again.

With a report from CTV's Jill Macyshon