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 25 new films on six networks, a procession that began Nov. 1 (“One Starry Christmas”) and continues through Dec. 14 (“The Christmas Parade”), 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 that good. But I sat through at least 10 minutes of each and found five films that kept me watching to the end.

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” (debuted 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 five.

“Christmas Under Wraps”

(Hallmark, Saturday)

I passed on Morrow’s film, but this is the next best thing: It’s his 1990s series “Northern Exposure” remade as a holiday movie. Candace Cameron-Bure (D.J. from “Full House”) stars as a doctor who loses her boyfriend and her fellowship and decides to spend a year working in the Alaskan outback (Fleischman, in “Northern Exposure” terms). Brian Doyle-Murray plays the jolly older guy (a cross of Holling and Maurice) and David O’Donnell is the bush-pilot love interest (a male Maggie).

“The Santa Con”

(Lifetime, Dec. 13)

Barry Watson (Matt from “7th Heaven”) is quite likable in this comedy as a just-released con man forced by his parole to take a job as a department-store Santa. It’s the rare holiday movie that takes a male point of view, though Melissa Joan Hart, who’s the director and an executive producer, gets a lot of screen time as the con man’s sister.

“The Tree That Saved Christmas”

(Up, Sunday)

Lacey Chabert (Claudia from “Party of Five”) does double duty this year. In Hallmark’s “A Royal Christmas,” she plays an all-American girl who finds out that her boyfriend is a European prince. In this decently written, mildly funny heart-tugger from Up (the channel whose motto is “Uplifting Entertainment”), she’s the daughter of the owners of a struggling Christmas tree farm. Guess what: Someone’s going to save the farm.

“The Christmas Shepherd”

(Hallmark, today)

Teri Polo (who wasn’t a child TV star but did have a recurring role in “Northern Exposure”) stars in this wistful drama as a widowed children’s-book writer. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s also a widowed coffeehouse owner in town. The film makes the top five because it features two excellent actors: Polo and Ace, who plays the writer’s dog, Buddy.

“Santa Hunters”

(Nickelodeon, Friday)

As unconventional a holiday movie as the Grumpy Cat project, and significantly funnier, this parody of the “Ghost Hunters” reality-TV genre stars Lil P-Nut (full name: Benjamin Flores Jr.) as Alex, a swaggering, 9-year-old paranormal investigator who tracks Santa Claus the way adults track Bigfoot. Breanna Yde of “The Haunted Hathaways,” a pint-size Wanda Sykes, is utterly charming as Alex’s cousin and camera operator.