“It appears that 2012 was a better year for retailers in our portfolio and across the board, which is good news,” said Levin's president, Matthew K. Harding. “While the growth remains modest, things are headed in the right direction.”

The post-holiday report was not quite as upbeat as last year's survey when 73.1% reported 2011 holiday sales at same or better levels than 2010. Nationally, the same was true: The National Retail Federation said 2012 holiday retail sales increased 3% from 2011, but came in below projections of a 4.1% hike.

Black Friday and Thanksgiving weekend provided the biggest sales boosts, according to Levin's poll, with nearly twice as many retailers reporting peak sales occurring during that period as did the year before. A full 80% said that their Black Friday/Thanksgiving weekend sales were as good as or better than expected.

“It appears that retailers' aggressive marketing efforts to rejuvenate Black Friday as a key holiday sales period are working,” Harding said. “However, after this encouraging start, sales seemed to drop off to levels lower than expected. Sluggish economic growth and 'fiscal cliff' worries among many consumers likely played a large role in keeping spending in check.”

Hiring trended sharply down from last year: 27% of survey respondents added staff for the holidays (compared to 31% in January 2012), and only 13% plan to retain holiday employees as permanent staff compared to 55% last year.

For the first time, there were more respondents to Levin's annual survey who said e-commerce had affected their holiday sales than those who said it didn't: 32% compared to 25%.

Also, the large majority of retailers -65%- said the superstorm had a negative impact on sales.

Going forward, though, optimism remained strong, with only 9% expressing pessimism about near-term performance.