Wrapping things up (finally) with a more recent example of obscure Christmas mediocrity is 2004's Trees 2: The Root of All Evil (also not on RT). The first Trees involved a forest full of killer pines, but the sequel hones in on Christmas firs. I've never seen the first Trees and most likely never will, but the sequel was the only film out of the "bad" section of holiday viewing that was actually pretty fun, and the only one that fessed up to being a joke. It's definitely a bad movie, the kind of schlocky FX disaster you always see at Blockbuster and nowhere else, but it's charmingly silly and ridiculous, and refreshingly non-disgusting for that type of movie. I never really understand why people would waste time and resources on something so stupid, but the script has a smattering of brilliantly insane lines involving people yelling and pounding their fists in "How can it NOT be a killer tree?" fashion. The clunky, action-lite climax hilariously reveals the fourth-quarter life-saving fact that all trees hate sleigh bells (cue a bunch of angry lumberjacks and townspeople chasing trees with sleigh bells and chlorine spray). Even though no one is taking the movie seriously and it's kind of legitimately funny, it's also really broad, really tedious, and ultimately pointless. The world already has Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, we didn't really need this too. Having said that, it's probably the only movie on this list that will ever have a chance of hitting the McArathon roster a second time.

Happy belated holidays.