Will this year’s Christmas shopping break the record? There are indications that it might: The Swedish krona is strong, it will likely be a white Christmas this year, few people will get laid off and the interest rates are low. According to HUI Research prognosis, this year’s Christmas shopping will increase 1.5 percent over last year and thereby reach a new record of 66 billion ($10 billion).

However, in the past the Swedish customer has not lived up to HUI’s prognoses, and only in 2009 did the Christmas shopping actually surpass the prediction. This year there are also some concerns: The weather and the fact that Christmas Eve falls on a Tuesday may make shopping inconvenient.

Lena Larsson, managing director at HUI, is still satisfied with the prognosis: ”Many families choose to travel abroad over Christmas, and that affects the retail business,” she says. Also some stores and brands are very dependent on the weather. The snow that fell last Christmas was like pennies from heaven for the sporting goods business, which increased its December sales by 21.3 percent compared to 2011, while retail sales as a whole declined by 0.6 percent.