Officials at some of Lawrence’s biggest and most prominent retailers say they’re ringing up positive holiday sales despite snowstorms, remodeling work and consumers’ penchants for putting off purchases.

The shopping season may have started off slowly, they say, but sales warmed up throughout the season and are catching fire as the new year approaches.

“For the week, we’re smokin’,” said Bob Catlin, co-manager at Wal-Mart, 3300 Iowa. “We’re up double digits for the week. We are trending to be right where we were last year, if not a little better.”

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, says the entire company is on track for its December sales to be up 2 percent to 4 percent from last December.

This week the Lawrence store has seen a rush of customers looking to redeem gift cards on big-ticket items such as TVs and DVD players, and other electronics such as video games and CDs, Catlin said. Gift card sales are not accounted for until the cards are redeemed.

Erma Porter, of Lawrence, shops among clearance items at Weaver's Department Store, 901 Mass. Shoppers lingered in stores to pick up post-holiday deals. Porter was shopping with her husband, Robert, for a birthday gift Wednesday.

Customers are growing increasingly comfortable with the store’s ongoing remodeling and expansion project, Catlin said, and that bodes well for the holiday season and beyond.

“We’re doing right with what the company is expecting,” he said Wednesday. “We’re cutting it close, but we’re exceeding last year – and that’s good, especially during a remodel.”

At Weaver’s Department Store, 901 Mass., sales are up from last year’s comparable period, said Earl Reineman, vice president.

While Reineman declined to discuss specific figures, he did acknowledge that the store’s holiday performance was “in the ballpark” of the overall nationwide holiday sales increase of 5.2 percent calculated by MasterCard International’s MasterCard Advisors unit.

“The two snows that we had prior to Christmas, in December, kept a lot of people here in Lawrence to shop,” Reineman said. “I also think the cold weather helped sales for a lot of winter goods – everything from coats to sweaters to gloves to hats and electric blankets. The cold weather makes them a lot more appealing to people, both as gifts and for personal use.”

Target Corp., meanwhile, this week reaffirmed its expectations that its stores open at least a year would see sales increase by 4 percent or 5 percent for December, compared with a year earlier. The company is scheduled to report its December sales Monday.

Adam Lemos, a team leader at SuperTarget, 3201 Iowa, said that the Lawrence store was meeting its own expectations for the season. Cold weather cut into sales early in the month, but couldn’t muffle purchases as Christmas approached.

“It didn’t seem to hinder things at all, once everybody got into the buying rush,” he said.