Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) reported a December sales gain of 2.4% this morning, which topped analyst estimates and probably caused some industry pundits wonder if December holiday retail sales were all that bad after all.

Did U.S. consumers tighten their wallets and purses and pursue only the bare bones bargains in December? Wal-Mart's sales growth last month would seem to indicate that. After all, no matter what image the world's largest retailer tries to create, it's still the "Always Low Prices" moniker that customers remember when those money clips and coin purses find themselves bare.

Wal-Mart's 2.4% gain in December was driven by sales of food, prescription drugs and consumer electronics. Naturally, electronics sales in December is to be expected. The 2.4% figure did beat analyst estimated of 1.8% and fell inline with Wal-Mart's rather wide 1% to 3% sales gain projection. Although measurement firm Retail Metrics called holiday sales "listless" outside of Black Friday and the actual week before Christmas, it could be said that Wal-Mart's 15,000 item price reduction before the Thanksgiving holiday may have helped it stave off sales growth weakness during the first three weeks of December.

After all, MasterCard Advisors said that "people waiting for discounts" helped many retailer experience sales sluggishness in December, while consulting firm A.T. Kearney said "Retailers have created a bunch of procrastinators waiting for the markdowns they knew were going to come, and they ended up buying at lower margins." At Wal-Mart, those markdowns were already in place before the competition could respond -- and every day has urgency when it comes to December retail sales.