MasterCard Advisors is reporting that retailers saw a modest gain of 6.45% in holiday sales from November 28th to December 24th this year over last, but that toy merchants suffered a 7.7% decline. And in more bad news, Executive Vice President and COO of The LEGO Company Poul Plougman told the Danish financial newspaper Børsen on Monday that “the trend throughout the year was unexpectedly bad, nearly catastrophic.”