Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events was the top film over a thin box office weekend in the US. The Jim Carrey film, the first in a possible series adapted from popular children's books, took $30m (£15.5m).
The festive joy was undercut somewhat by the fact that Carrey's last two films - Bruce Almighty and The Grinch - both made more than $50m on their opening weekend.
Despite its star power, Lemony was a long way from matching the kind of return achieved by any of the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings instalments, and a barrage of sequels now looks less likely.
There was relative disappointment too for the ensemble heist movie sequel Ocean's Twelve in a rather feeble weekend at the American box office. Despite a cast which includes George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Catherine Zeta-Jones it dropped 53% from its respectable $40m opening to take second place with just $18.3m (£9.4m).
Further down the list there was more unseasonable gloom for Adam Sandler and Tea Leoni's comedy Spanglish, which took a meagre $9m (£4.6m) in third.
The real Yuletide turkey, however, was Flight of the Phoenix, starring Dennis Quaid and Giovanni Ribisi.
The remake of the 1965 adventure yarn was frozen out in eighth place, making just $5.2m (£2.7m).
