Although it was suggested that my rosey outlook for online spending this holiday season was overly optimistic and perhaps even quite naive, early results indicate that Black Friday shoppers have seen the light – opting to stay home and shop online instead.

(Not to mention that they also saved time, energy, verhicle wear & tear, shipping costs and a whole lot of stress!)

In a press release this morning, comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, reported its tracking of holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 28 days of the November – December 2008 holiday season.

For the holiday season-to-date, $10.41 billion has been spent online, marking a 4-percent decline versus the corresponding days last year, while Black Friday saw $534 million in online spending, up 1 percent. For the combination of Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday, online sales were up 2 percent relative to last year.

So much for the meltdown. Now bring on Cyber Monday!