Leading up to this holiday season, there was a lot of speculation about how the recession would affect spending. The last two years, after all, have not been impressive by historical standards. Yet based on the data we’re seeing, the naysayers were dead wrong. In fact, some estimates claim that 2010 may have been the biggest holiday spending season ever (in terms of total dollars.) Then again, others contend that the recession was still present during the holidays.

Here’s our breakdown:

The Numbers

Prior to 2010, the record for holiday spending (between November 1 and December 31) in one year was $453 billion, which was set in 2007. In 2010, according to CNN Money, a new record was set: $462 billion. This represents a 5.7% year-over-year increase from 2009’s totals and seems to indicate that the recession didn’t have a particularly large impact on our holiday spending in 2010. All told, this also represented the largest single year percentage increase since 2004, when holiday sales rose 5.9% from 2003.

Online Shopping

Additional research finds that holiday shopping increased across the board this year, not just at brick-and-mortar retail stores. Citing a comScore report, 247WallSt.com confirmed that online commerce sharply rose in December 2010:

“The most recent week (week ending Dec. 19) reached $5.5 billion in [total] spending, an increase of 14 percent versus the corresponding week last year,” the researcher says. “The final shopping weekend before Christmas reached $900 million in retail e-commerce spending, representing a strong 17-percent growth rate versus last year.”

One possible reason for the shopping surge? The extension of Bush-era tax cuts. Leading up to the holiday season, many economists speculated that consumers would simply pocket the money from tax benefits, or use the cash to pay off credit card debt. Instead, 247WallSt.com suggests that some of that money likely moved back into the economy, even before the benefits actually took place.

Shopping Holidays

In fact, each major “shopping holiday” leading up to Christmas saw higher overall sales totals in 2010 when compared to 2009. comScore tabulated the following data comparing spending during each shopping day, excluding “auctions and large corporate purchases,” which we summarize below:

Black Friday: $595MM in 2009 vs. $648MM in 2010 (9% increase)

Cyber Monday: $887MM in 2009 vs. $1.28B in 2010 (16% increase)

Green Monday: $854MM in 2009 vs. $954MM in 2010 (12% increase)

Free Shipping Day: $586MM in 2009 vs. $942MM in 2010 (61% increase)

Clearly, a significant number of consumers spent more in 2010 than they did in 2009, particularly during the shopping “holidays.” This seems to suggest that they perceived the recession to be over and felt more comfortable spending money than they did in the previous year.

Product Categories

Certain product categories enjoyed especially high increases in holiday sales. CNN Money (referencing National Retail Federation data) reported “an increase of 8.4% in December sales at clothing and clothing accessory stores, and an increase of 8.2% at sporting goods, hobby, book and music stores,” when compared to the same time period in 2009. Stores that sell building materials and garden equipment also saw 12% increases in year-over-year December sales.

Excluding automobiles, month-to-month sales rose .5%—which falls just short of the .6% increase predicted by the NRF, but is still fairly substantial.

The Forecasts

By most estimates, 2010 holiday sales surpassed industry forecasts and surprised the vast majority of industry insiders. An October Washington Post article reminded us that the National Retail Federation predicted just a 2.3% increase in consumer spending during November and December—”a moderate increase that comes in just under the 10-year average gain of 2.5 percent.”

The group’s new chief executive, Matt Shay, told me Tuesday that the forecast takes into account both the tight job market facing consumers but also the improved sentiment since the depths of the financial crisis.

“We would characterize this as neither optimistic nor pessimistic,” he said. “I think we would characterize this as very realistic.”

Given the sales increases, both overall and on each individual shopping holiday discussed above, it’s clear that recent holiday sales blew away these projections.

Population Growth

However, not everyone is completely convinced that holiday sales were unaffected by the recession. A January 14 Washington Post article argues that the holiday spending “record” is not as good as it looks. Although more total dollars were spent this year than any other, including the 2007 peak, the Post suggests that that doesn’t mean Americans actually bought more merchandise:

That button-down shirt you bought your father in 2010 probably cost more than it would have three years ago. But the government figures on which the National Retail Federation bases its holiday sum do not take into account rising prices. Although inflation has been tame over the past few years, holiday spending would have had to clear $478 billion to signify spending was back to pre-recession levels.

Moreover, the U.S. population has grown by 8 million people since 2007. In other words, while there were millions more shoppers this year, “the average spending per person is still lower than it was a few years ago.”

So there you have it: Record setting holiday spending suggests that recession era concerns are far from people’s minds. But, when you take into consideration both population growth and price inflation, the picture becomes a bit less rosy.