Close-Up: Live Issue - Will winter bring us any festive cheer?

Retailers are set to tone down celebrations ahead of a credit-crunch Christmas.

Seasonal convention holds that as soon as the last pumpkin is carved, retailers hit consumers with Christmas.

Shop windows suddenly become lined with tinsel and fake snow, Fairytale of New York will be played constantly in HMV and our television screens will be teeming with glamorous, celebrity-filled Christmas ads for the main high-street retailers.

At least, that's what normally happens. But you might have noticed this year that the economy is in a bit of trouble, and consumers are beginning to cut back on their spending. This could pose real problems for retailers, who rely heavily on the festive period.

'Some retailers do around 60 per cent of their year-round business during the Christmas period, so you can see why the time is so important to them,' Richard Dodd, a spokesman for the British Retail Consortium, the trade association for the British retail industry, explains.

'But it is going to be a tough Christmas this year, there's no question about that. Christmas was notably weak last year, and conditions running up to the period this year are even worse.'

As consumers begin to spend less, and become more willing to shop around to bag a bargain, the competition between retailers is certainly going to intensify.