NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Instead of "Ho, ho, ho!" it's looking more like "Oh, no, no!" for the 2004 holiday shopping season.

Weekly chain store sales are out Tuesday and the latest tally is disappointing to say the least. Sales fell 1.7% in the week ended Dec. 4, after falling 1.5% the week before, according to the survey conducted by the International Council of Shopping Centers. In fact, weekly sales have dropped in three of the past four weeks.

Now it's true that more and more people don't do the bulk of their shopping early in the season between Thanksgiving and Christmas because they know that the discounts will only get deeper the closer we get to the holidays.

But the fact that Wal-Mart (Research) is only projecting a modest sales increase for the month of December, combined with recent declines in measures of consumer confidence, may be signaling an unpleasant reality for retailers.

Still too early to say -- sales could rev up in the next few weeks. Right now, though, it's not looking so jolly for the companies that count on end-of-year sales to plump up their profits.