The world used to be a simpler place. In late October, year-end holiday excitement would begin to grow once the Night of Candy arrived. Stores would have post-Halloween sales for a week or so, and you could pick up some interesting stuff on the cheap.

Everyone would snooze thru Thanksgiving. Parades. Football games. The four-day weekend was always a bonus. It was low-key, but it worked, assuming you weren’t a turkey.

Black Friday would hit, and the Christmas season would officially begin. Lights would appear, followed by frosted trees, holiday music, and dodgy-looking Santas. The season was clearly delineated: Halloween. Thanksgiving. Christmas. New Years was actually a relief.

Nowadays, Halloween offal is pulled a week beforehand to make way for Christmas merchandise. Thanksgiving barely registers any longer. I noticed Yuletide flotsam on the shelves before Labor day. Christmas has been approaching for so long, it is easy to forget that it is practically upon us.

Oh, right, there was supposed to be a trigger warning:: This post contains the word Christmas. Sorry about that. Go and stock your safe spaces with gingerbread cookies and eggnog. Check out some survivalist websites, as you will be in there for at least a month.

We feel sorry for Thanksgiving and include this paragraph to specifically draw attention to its plight, before rushing on to more Christmas-y paragraphs. We hope you are enjoying whatever scrumptious meal you have cobbled together. Here’s hoping it is not something you need to eat with a spork. At TiaT Central, we make our own pizza. Re-read this week’s comics with this new information and enjoy the humor on a whole new level.

On Friday, while the rest of the world participates in a Hunger Games-style contest for the latest gender-neutral whatsits and electronic whirlygigs, we’ll be drawing our annual Christmas card. Codex has been doing this for many years, but this year we’ll be tying it directly to our comic. We’ll post it, although the details remain fluid until we see how when things turn out.

Oh, right, another trigger warning: we wish folks a Merry Christmas during the holidays. If we are in England we would wish them a Happy Christmas, because that is the way the British people charmingly say it. We do not say Happy Hanukkah because we are not Jewish. We do not wish anyone a Happy Quanza because we are not communists. We avoid saying Seasons Greetings because we are not atheists. In fact, Seasons Greetings is quite confusing because can’t you pretty much say that at any time of the year?

Should any of our readers or friends return our Merry Christmas with one of these retorts, we will be just fine with that. It is in the spirit of the holiday and of our savior for whom it is named. We are also adults, and realize that we share the world with many other faiths. If you are one of those fragile snowflakes that just cannot handle this concept, then I invite you to retreat to your well-stocked safe space with your winter cookies and your Starbucks pumpkin latte in the non-offensive-red holiday cup. Don’t make the mistake of drinking Dunkin’ Donuts coffee with their red-snowflake cup, or you might fall into a recursive trigger trap.  And just like that,  another dodgy-looking Santa Claus would be released into his natural shopping mall environment.

If you are reading this and it is actually Thanksgiving day, you are probably here for a “sanity break” from family or parole officers. As we always strive to be helpful and upbeat, try the following conversation topics, as suggested by various authority figures. Gun control. Obamacare. The evils of the latest crusade (the ninth, 1271-1272, to save you an internet search). Perhaps most important: is the oven a safe space for a turkey?

Of course it is. Happy Thanksgiving, readers!