So a funny thing happened in the midst of the two-week “VIX blahs” — an actual VIX rally!

There’s a bit less here than meets the eye, however. Remember that glance at the futures board on Thursday? We saw abnormally large premiums, suggesting the VIX itself had understated real volatility assumptions thanks to two holidays and two slow trading weeks. Here’s how the futures board looked as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern.

In a little over one trading session, the VIX has rallied 2.6 points. But the lift is much more tepid if you look at VIX futures, with the January futures gaining $1, while the February futures gained 70 cents.

I would strongly avoid getting too carried away about any of this. With the VIX in the 15 range before today’s rally, I wouldn’t consider it unusually cheap given the non-volatile month we have just about left behind and the lack of obvious drivers going forward. And the large futures premiums already anticipated a lift back up anyway. The only real surprise is the timing. I would have anticipated this move up to happen gradually over the course of a week, not abruptly in little more than one day. All we’ve really done though is move to the higher end of the range that has contained the VIX since Dec. 6. Unless we see another push higher into the 19-20 area, it’s really just much more noise than signal in my humble opinion.

However, there is something to worry about. The VIX has rallied strongly in the face of a rather insignificant drop in the market. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSE: SPY) is only about 0.5% off Wednesday’s highs. So why the rush into options? It’s generally bullish if fear outstrips reality, but of course, there’s always that pesky thought that someone knows something you don’t, and that the smart money is paying a little more for options. I tend to go with the former interpretation (bullish for the markets) with, again, the caveat that it’s a slow holiday trade day and the best call is to probably ignore it all.

Follow Adam Warner on Twitter @agwarner.