Christmas weekend is one of the biggest movie weekends of the year. This year, thanks to Christmas being on Friday, the weekend was even bigger. While there were a lot of high-grossing new releases, the biggest star of the weekend was the biggest star of last weekend.

James Cameron's Avatar racked up big last weekend, and continued to rake in money this weekend as well. The picture grossed a staggering $75 million dollars this weekend, and has made an impressive $212 million dollars in its 10 days of release. That's a whole lot of money, and given the very low drop between this weekend and last, it stands to continue making serious money. When you add in the movie's $400 million dollar international gross, Avatar has already turned a profit on its rumored $500 million investment thanks to $600 million in box office receipts. How's that for mind-boggling?

That's not to say Avatar didn't have some challengers. The closest new release to Avatar's bankroll was Sherlock Holmes, which took in $65 million dollars for second place. If that's not jaw-dropping enough, then consider third place Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, which took in $50.2 million dollars this weekend (and has taken in $77 million since its Wednesday opening). There's a reason I didn't go to the movies this weekend! When you add those up with fourth place It's Complicated's box office gross of $22.11 million, you've got a healthy $200 million or so split between four movies!

Two movies joining the fray in wide release also performed well, but not quite that well. While Up in the Air cashed in on Oscar buzz and George Clooney to take fifth place with $11.755 million dollars, the harder sell Nine managed only eighth on $5.5 million dollars. That's got to be a little bit disappointing, considering Nine's $80 million budget.

Speaking of disappointing, Disney's The Princess and the Frog plunged to seventh place in the midst of all the box office competition. While it still took in $8.6 million dollars, it's not going to make its listed $105 million budget back in the US. I'm not really sure how well the movie will do internationally, either, but I'm interested to see how it goes.

The Blind Side is another movie that might not do well globally. After all, it is about American football. The movie drops to sixth place this weekend, but it continues to string together strong box office performances by picking up $11.73 million dollars, almost knocking off Up in the Air to keep hold of the top five. Sandra Bullock is really impressive at the box office this year (and impressive in the movie, as well).

Rounding out the last box office weekend of 2009, Did You Hear About the Morgans? continues to be a dud. The picture managed ninth place on $5 million dollars this weekend. Can we all just kill this Sarah Jessica Parker is a movie star meme now, please? She's had one notable role, and that is her only claim to fame besides being married to Ferris Bueller. She'll be the first in line to do Sex and the City 3 sometime in 2012.

Invictius brings up last place, bringing in $4.39 million this weekend. It'll be gone soon, even with no major releases on the way out next weekend thanks to it being New Year's Day/Eve?Weekend. After that, we get a glut of award-nominees and my favorite time of year, the dead season where all the worst major studio movies get pushed out into release in the hopes of turning poop into gold. Yay!