A week before Christmas, December sales at Patti’s Cards & Gifts in Middletown were comfortably ahead of last year’s pace, and store co-owner Bruce Robe was confident the business was poised to wrap up a successful holiday shopping season.

“Then it got slow,” Robe said.

By Christmas, sales were lagging behind last year. Robe said he believes his customers are concerned about the “fiscal cliff” and its potential impact on their taxes, and their collective mood turned melancholy in the wake of the Connecticut school shootings. “I just think they became a lot more careful about what they spend,” he said.

Robe’s experience mirrors the holiday shopping season nationwide, as high expectations triggered by a robust Thanksgiving weekend have fizzled. Consumers’ dampened mood and slipping confidence have cut into sales projections during the most important weeks of the year to American’s retailers, both large and small.

The Conference Board announced Thursday that its consumer confidence index fell in November to its lowest level since August. Conference Board officials blamed the “fiscal cliff” negotiations named for automatic spending cuts and tax hikes that begin Jan. 1 if the White House and Congress don’t reach a budget deal.

Still, all is not gloom and doom for small retail businesses in west-central and southwest Ohio and across the nation, and the National Retail Federation believes a strong post-Christmas rally could make the 2012 holiday shopping season a success.

NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said this year’s holiday shopping season is still on track to finish up 3.5 percent or 4 percent over last year, rather than the anemic 0.7 percent calculated by MasterCard’s SpendingPulse earlier this week. The lower projection did not take into account online sales or after-Christmas gift card spending, Shay said.

Don McKanna, who has owned Frame Haven Art Gallery in Springfield with his wife Audrey for 11 years, said his business has had solid, consistent sales throughout December. For the year, McKanna expects sales to be up 10 to 15 percent over last year — “although last year was our worst in a decade,” he said.

Stanley Maschino, owner and president of Dayton Nut Specialties in Dayton, said sales at his 90-year-old business were about equal to last year — although he acknowledged he was hoping for a better showing heading into the holiday shopping season.

“I do think some people are still a bit scared,” Maschino said. “They think, ‘I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.’”

Still, Maschino said he expects next year to be stronger.

“You have to be optimistic,” he said. “We’ve been here for 90 years, and we’d like to be here for another 90.”