by business editor Trevor Sturgess

Shoppers shrugged off the snow to make it a surprisingly jolly Christmas for retailers.

According to the British Retail Consortium/KMPG monthly survey, UK retail sales were six per cent higher in December 2009 than in the same month in 2008.

Helen Dickinson, Head of Retail at KPMG, said: "Christmas really provided an opportunity for strong retailers to ‘strut their stuff’ and, although the stream of trading updates has only just started, we will see a pronounced polarisation between retailers who got the proposition right and those that did not."

Food sales growth picked up to its strongest since June, partly reflecting higher food price inflation. Wintry weather gave a good boost to clothing and footwear. Homewares sales showed further gains but against larger declines a year ago. Furniture slowed but health and beauty picked up, helped by Christmas gifts.

Non-food non-store sales - internet, mail-order and phone sales - were 26.5 per cent higher than a year ago compared with 16.9 per cent in November. Some benefited from shoppers buying online when snow prevented them getting out.

Stephen Robertson, BRC director general, said: "These are stronger figures than we dared hope for. After a surprisingly muted November, this is the best total sales growth for a December since 2005 and goes well beyond just making up for the sales fall the sector suffered a year ago."

He added that snow had kept people away from the shops for a while but they made up for it in the days just before Christmas.

But he warned that concerns about jobs and tax rises could show that a healthy December was only a "temporary respite on the painful road to recovery."