Retail gasoline prices should decline across much of the country as demand ebbs with the arrival of the winter months.

The national average for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline was $2.857 on Monday, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. That’s about 1.5 cents lower than it was a week ago but about 23 cents higher than a year ago.

That’s just about the same as the weekly reading from the Energy Department, which put retail gasoline at $2.856 a gallon, which was 2 cents less than it was a week ago.

“No doubt we had a busy weekend and we used a lot of fuel,” said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service. “I still think it’s a slow bail, a slow sort of drift downward for most of the country for retail prices.”