Watch in January for some store chains to file for bankruptcy protection, for thousands and thousands of retail jobs to be eliminated, and for the kinds of deep-discounted sales that might lead you to think that other stores are going out of business.

Why is such a bleak scenario a near certainty? Because the holiday shopping season is turning out to be one of the ugliest in years.

And anyone awaiting a late surge of shopping has now been greatly disappointed. In the final weekend before Christmas, just 38.7 percent of Americans went shopping, according to the survey by America's Research Group and UBS, Reuters reports. It was down from 41.6 percent in 2007, and the slowest store traffic in at least six years.

The final Saturday before Christmas, known as Super Saturday in the industry, is nearly as important to retailers as Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving that is the traditional start of the holiday shopping season.

To be sure, the winter storms in the Midwest and Northeast hurt shopping badly last weekend. If fears about their jobs and their debt were not enough to persuade consumers to stay home, the snow and ice clinched the deal. A total of 784 inches of snow fell in 260 major cities last week, according to a Weather Trends report. And that is nearly three times the average for that same week in December over the last 20 years.

Those who did get out and shop increasingly went to discounters like Wal-Mart Stores, a trend that has been seen throughout this holiday shopping season.

The final revision to the  third-quarter gross domestic product today confirmed the slowdown in consumer spending. In the three months that ended September 30, consumer spending shrank 3.8 percent. It was the biggest contraction since 1980, when the economy was roiled by oil price shocks.