NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Shopping is obsessing a lot of us, on a micro and macro level as Hanukah continues and Christmas approaches.

After a weekend of micro -- buying gifts -- today we get the macro: retail sales for November were up 0.1 percent; up 0.5 percent if you leave out auto sales. The numbers were a tiny bit better than expected.

Unfortunately this report only gives us a hint of what the first part of the holiday shopping season looked like, because it started at the tail end of the month.

And remember, the government surveys about 12,000 stores, but in its first monthly read on retail sales, it only has about a third of the sample survey in hand. So that also limits the impact of the shopping signal sent by this report.

Looking ahead, discounts abound and oil prices are dropping, allowing gas prices to ease. Maybe this will ease the minds of those who are less than certain about their job futures in 2005.

As for the affluent, whose home prices have skyrocketed and whose jobs are not in danger of being restructured or outsourced, this may turn out to be another hot shopping Christmas.  

Kathleen Hays is economics correspondent for CNN and contributes to Lou Dobbs Tonight.