http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/22/arts/christmas-under-wraps-among-top-5-holiday-tv-movies.html 2014-11-22 00:11:49 ‘Christmas Under Wraps’ Among Top 5 Holiday TV Movies “Christmas Under Wraps,” “The Santa Con” and “The Tree That Saved Christmas” are among the best new holiday films on TV this season. === When did the holiday television movie become part of the fabric of Christmasness, as ubiquitous as Mariah Carey or sickeningly sweet lattes? This season there are at least 30 new films on seven networks, a procession that began on Nov. 1 (“One Starry Christmas,” Hallmark) and continues through Dec. 20 (“Back to Christmas,” Ion), along with hundreds of reruns from years past. That’s a lot of uplift and bad sweaters. In the true holiday spirit, I decided to throw myself on this festive grenade and watch all of those new films, or at least the 21 I could get my hands on. Well, technically I didn’t watch them; that would have been 1,764 minutes of Christmas sugar, before commercials, and my company’s health benefits aren’t Before we get to the list, a few general observations. Most holiday movies are produced for Lifetime and Hallmark (along with its sister channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries). The Christmas film is therefore largely a subsection of another genre, the women’s picture, which is why so many of them are about men not being around for the holidays. In this year’s movies, men cheat, walk out, drink, die, take work trips or turn out to be European royalty, just so they won’t have to visit your parents’ house on Christmas. It’s the most morbid time of the year. Dead moms, dead dads, dead husbands, dead wives, dead grandparents — it wouldn’t be a Christmas movie without someone to mourn. There isn’t a lot of snow in these movies, unless they’re set in Alaska. Most of that caroling and tree trimming is shot in the spring or summer. Holiday TV movies are a safe zone for defenders of Christmas. This bunch had no tales of Kwanzaa, Hanukkah or Eid al-Fitr. Finally, some movies that didn’t make the cut deserve comment. I was looking forward to “Debbie Macomber’s Mr. Miracle” (Hallmark, Dec. 6) because it stars an actor I like, Rob Morrow, as an angel sent to earth. But his performance — somewhere between Clarence in “It’s a Wonderful Life” and Patch Adams — didn’t quite click. “An En Vogue Christmas” (Saturday, Lifetime) isn’t really about En Vogue, but it is the only holiday movie whose opening moments include a vocal group loudly singing, “I wear tight clothing, high-heeled shoes/It doesn’t mean that I’m a prostitute.” And while “Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever” (Lifetime, Nov. 29) will probably get more attention than any other holiday movie this year, with its transgressive talking-animal humor, it’s just not that funny. And now — little-drummer-boy roll — here are the Top 5. CHRISTMAS UNDER WRAPS THE SANTA CON THE TREE THAT SAVED CHRISTMAS THE CHRISTMAS SHEPHERD SANTA HUNTERS