‘Tis the season to break out the holiday wear. I don’t mean ties imprinted with Santa’s chubby cheeks, and red and green sweaters littered with snowflakes. Let’s wait until December for that.

I’m talking about pants that are two sizes too large and sweatshirts marked 3XL. If they happen to sport festive colors, so much the better.

The important thing is that the clothes be big enough to accommodate holiday eating.

Thanksgiving and Christmas, two of the largest food consumption days of the year, are less than a month apart. In between and a little bit after, people can’t seem to do enough baking of cakes and cookies and candies and foisting them on friends, neighbors and co-workers.

(This is not a complaint. By all means, foist away! ‘Tis the season.)

Sure, there always are some inhuman spoilsports who wear form-fitting outfits that hug impossibly thin waistlines. How sad their lives must be without peanut butter fudge and Hershey’s Kiss Cookies.

For the vast majority (and getting vaster each year), it is up to us to be polite and accept the holiday cheer all the holiday cooks spread upon our spreads.

Which brings us to holiday clothing. Sometimes we forget this and that’s why, as a public service, I am providing this reminder.

I forgot myself this year. The other day, my wife handed me a pair of pants she found that she thought might be my size.

When I unfolded them, I was irked. How could she? My own sweetheart. The waist on these things was size … well, never mind the size. Let’s just say they were quite a stretch from the size 29s I wore in college. Worse, they ran a little north of the size I squeeze into since I’ve, uh, matured.

I really became steamed when I tried them on. Because they fit. Not perfectly. They need to attend a couple Thanksgiving feasts to take up the slack. But mostly they fit.

That’s when I remembered Einstein’s Theory of Holiday Food Relativity:

For every action involving turkey and stuffing and gravy and pumpkin pie and gingerbread cookies, an equal and corresponding reaction of material must be added into holiday clothing.

Otherwise, horrible explosions with shrapnel from buttons and snaps will occur.

Forget all that stuff you were taught about squirrels and dogs and rabbits and cows growing thicker coats of fur in the winter for warmth. The truth is they’ve changed into their holiday skins to make room for the squirrel and dog and rabbit and cow office parties and family feasts.

See, the very laws of nature itself teach us there is no shame in breaking out the X-rated clothing for the Christmas season. By “X,” I mean XL, 2XL, 3XL and so forth.

Back in the prehistoric days when I was a boy and dinosaurs roamed the earth (those were some great feasts), there was a popular expression — “Let it all hang out.”

In this more enlightened era, we know that with enough X’s in our holiday wear, we don’t have to miss a single helping of stuffing or pass any tray of candy, and nothing has to hang out.

So as another season of high-caloric goodwill is upon us, pay attention to holiday fashions. Seconds on candied yams and rhubarb pie depend upon it.

Write for Cole’s fashion catalog for chocolate lovers at burtseyeview@tribtoday .com, the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook or @Bur tonWCole on Twitter.