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Take refuge in the box office numbers, knowing that there are a mere five days (or fewer) days between you and the sweet, sweet release of the holidays.

1. King Kong—$50.15 million (3 day)
To badly paraphrase a saying that's gotten us through some very potentially embarrassing moments, sometimes it's not the size of the gorilla, but the magic that's in it that matters. After Kong's disappointing opening, Universal is putting on a similarly brave face for the public:

"The expectation or the guessing or hypothesizing of what it was going to do is based on a lot of misunderstanding and ignorance over how a three-hour movie plays that doesn't come with legions of fans," said Marc Shmuger, vice chairman of Universal Pictures, who brushed aside suggestions that "King Kong" had not lived up to expectations. "This is not Tolkien. This is not the `Harry Potter' fan base."

Of course, Kong will probably go on to make the appropriate boatloads of money that everyone expected. But nobody would be too surprised to discover hundreds of Uni employees' bodies littering a commissary next Monday, clutching emptied cups of Guyana eggnog, should they have another slow weekend.

2. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe—$31.2 million
One key advantage Narnia enjoys over CGI competitor Kong, at least with family audiences, is (as far as we know, anyway) its lack of a scene that might prompt an impressionable tyke to ask, "Mommy, why are those giant penises with teeth swallowing those men?"

3. The Family Stone—$12.7 million
Perhaps people sought out a couple of hours where they could marinate in fictional family dysfunction to prepare themselves for the emotional gauntlet of the holidays.

4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire—$5.9 million
When a movie's spent this long in the top five, there's really nothing left to say, leaving us with little choice but to link to a pervy, inappropriate countdown clock.

5. Syriana—$5.5 million
We may be going a little too far with the personal disclosure, but we think we're about three days' worth of beard growth and about ten pounds away from a Golden Globes nomination.