The Argyle Sweater by Scott Hilburn for December 19, 2022

I was born a tooth miners fairy

Is that where Santa gets coal for stockings?

Industrial-strength tooth fairy. Clever!

The coal miner’s fairy.

One single coal fairy has no immediate use for such small amounts of coal per se. However, gradual accumulations of bituminous coal by fairies the world over are mass processed into “coke,” which is necessary for strong fairy metabolism. The high caloric value enables them to fly: Wings go better with coke. (—

Now he’ll have to be bad so Santa will bring him a new tooth for Christmas.

Clever, very clever!

Frosty the Snowman: “Happy birth…yipes! I am missing one of my coal eyes!”

Now he either won’t be able to whistle or he’ll whistle all the time.

The poor snowman won’t be nearly as "bite"uminous with an incomplete mouth.

Yikes, it’s coal out here!

Frosty, the Early Years

You load sixteen ounces, whattaya get?

Another day older and deeper in debt

Coal Fairy or Miner Fairy? I prefer the former to the later.

Different kind of toothpick.

Wait a minute. The tooth fairy isn’t supposed to pull teeth out of mouths….

Frosty is pretty lucky, that they weren’t strip-mining.

Things are really bad in the Ukraine!

So – what did the fair leave him? Cold cash?