Officials at local malls say holiday results here may be better than they were nationwide.

The Oaks mall had a "tremendous year" in 2008, according to spokesperson Nicole Flynn, with major stores hitting their benchmarks and the new Nordstrom excited about its first-year sales.

In contrast, a nationwide drop in sales last year was reported by most retailers, including mall anchors Nordstrom and Macy's.

Last week Macy's Inc. announced the closing of 11 underperforming stores around the country. The Oaks store wasn't among them.

And Nordstrom Inc. recently reported preliminary sales of $1.13 billion nationally for the five-week period ending Jan. 3, a decrease of 8 percent compared with sales of $1.22 billion for the fiveweek period ending Jan. 5, 2008.

Nordstrom's holiday sales performance in The Oaks, however, exceeded expectations, Thousand Oaks store officials reported.

"It's clear that the broader economy had an impact on consumers and holiday shopping this year—and we were prepared for this," Flynn said. "Retailers offered deep discounts and very aggressive promotions—successful in bringing traffic to their stores."

At the mall, Shoppertrak, a traffic-recording system that counts each person entering and exiting the mall, showed an increase over last year in numbers at the shopping center.

Flynn credits the increase to the completion of the extensive renovation and outdoor expansion that opened on Nov. 15.

The theaters are slated to open in February, so there's more to look forward to, she said. Although Janss Marketplace faced challenges in 2008 as Mervyns, Shoe Pavilion and Linens 'n Things closed down, mall managers said new stores have expressed strong interest in locating at the outdoor shopping center.

Sears Inc. was down nationally 12.8 percent during its fiveweek December sales period, the company reported.