Check out the impending Thanksgiving holiday shopping weekend and anxious retailers preparing for the shopping rush with door-busting deals and discounts.

Ahead of the upcoming three-day shopping weekend, which is seen by many as the offical start of the holiday shopping season, numerous groups have offered their view on just how jolly holiday sales will be this year as consumers face a slumping U.S. housing market, rising food and fuel prices, and the credit market crunch.

Below are some excerpts of predictions for the holiday season:

National Retail Federation: The trade group expects total holiday retail sales, which includes November and December, to rise 4 percent to $474.5 billion this year.  That would mark the slowest holiday sales growth since 2002, when sales rose 1.3 percent, and it would fall below the ten-year holiday sales average of a 4.8 percent increase.

Telsey Advisory Group: Speaking to reporters this week Dana Telsey said she expects holiday sales to rise 3 to 4 percent, trailing the average forecast over the past 10 years of 4.8 percent. Her forecast includes sales for November and December. She said the Thanksgiving holiday shopping weekend typically accounts for 9 to 10 percent of holiday sales, while the 10 days before Christmas usually account for 40 percent of holiday sales.

Ernst & Young LLP Consumer Products Practice: Expects the 2007 retail holiday sales increase for November 2007 - January 2008 will be 4.5 percent - down from last year’s retail holiday increase of 4.9 percent.  The forecast and last year’s actual increase includes the month of January due to the growing popularity of gift cards.

The Boston Consulting Group: Based on a survey it conducted between Oct. 10 and Oct. 23 of 2,570 Americans with household incomes over $35,000, BCG says expectations for weak holiday spending could be overblown. “The doom and gloom is overstated. Unemployment is low. Real incomes are healthy,” said Michael J. Silverstein, a BCG senior partner. “Consumers overall predict that this holiday season will be just as good, if not better, than last.”

Customer Growth Partners:  Predicting 5.0 percent to 5.4 percent annual growth for holidays sales, in line with average growth rates of the past decade.  “As we said after 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, when gasoline prices rose well above $3/gallon, Americans are far more resilient that the experts expect,” said CGP president Craig Johnson, “and just as sales rose 7% at Holiday 2005 despite Wall Street expectations of a low-growth Christmas, 2007 will see over 5% Holiday sales growth, held down only by a stubborn housing slump.”

Keep in mind that this year, Thanksgiving falls on Nov 22. That means it will be along holiday shopping season, with 32 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas and five full shopping weekends.

It will be a long time before anyone can figure out if these holiday sales forecasts are on target.

(Photo: Reuters)