The holiday season returned to New Dorp on Friday night, and not just in the form of the giant snowflake decorations across New Dorp Lane.

The calendar said Thanksgiving was still two weeks away, but it might as well have been Turkey Day — a date Curtis and New Dorp used to own for half a century on Staten Island with their annual holiday football clash, a contest where something was always at stake and which seemingly brought out most of the borough.

While the crowd size paled in comparison to those bygone contests, the Warriors’ effort did not. A stingy defense and a bevy of big plays fueled a 36-6 Curtis rout on a night when you could blow smoke as the wind whipped through Miller Field. Only six missed conversions by the Warriors, a sympathetic second-half clock and a gift New Dorp touchdown on the evening’s final play made it even that close.

The victory may have secured a top-half berth in the eight-team PSAL AAAA quarterfinals for Curtis (5-3 league), which entered the Nov. 10 tilt at No. 5 in the league’s power-point standings. The setback for New Dorp (4-4), which entered in seventh place, put it in a precarious situation.

It’s the PSAL postseason which all but killed the Thanksgiving tradition between the two schools, last played in 1991 when Curtis head coach Pete Gambardella was a junior running back for his alma mater.

“Curtis-New Dorp have always been battles,” said Gambardella, now in his 16th season at the helm. “The league playoffs ended [the Thanksgiving game], but I would rather be practicing for the playoffs.”

On New Dorp’s senior night, it was the Warriors’ seniors — the last class of players affected by the Covid shutdown — whom Gambardella felt best for.

“They missed their freshman year, but now they’ll still be playing in late November as seniors. It’s a good thing. They rubbed elbows with our last city championship [finalist] team back in 2021,” said the coach, whose season has been a work in progress. Over the previous four games, Curtis scored two blowout wins (34-6 over Susan Wagner, 33-6 against Canarsie) followed by two blowout losses (41-18 at Tottenville, 40-13 at Erasmus).

“We’re playing a lot of young guys in key spots,” Gambardella said. “We have our own standard that doesn’t change. You have to rise up to that standard.”

Freshman running back Quadare Gomez and sophomore quarterback Justin Wu spearheaded an offense that registered three TDs in each half, while the defense — featuring Gambardella’s son, Anthony, a soph linebacker — totally shut down the Central Cougars.

“It’s something I waited my whole life for,” said the elder Gambardella of coaching his son. “The good part of it is that I don’t see much of him during the week (since the coach is usually preoccupied with the offense). But he’s always been around the team. Even when we won the 2007 city championship, my wife was pregnant with him.”

As for New Dorp head coach Brian Murphy, it will be a weekend of scoreboard watching to make sure his club doesn’t drop out of the top eight.

“[Curtis] played really well, and we’re not a very good football team right now,” said Murphy, whose Cougars had played five straight one-score decisions prior to Friday. “It’s a little frustrating. And on top of that, we got a couple of guys dinged up, including our starting slot receiver [senior Sean Brower, who was hit in the back by a Curtis helmet in the first quarter and did not return].

“Hopefully, we’ll qualify for the playoffs, but we’ll need a good week of practice.”

NOTES: Gambardella said his squad may get the No. 4 seed and host John F. Kennedy next Saturday. … According to longtime ND statistician Charlie Perrino, the all-time series between the two rivals is now dead even at 41-41. But Gambardella said he believes Curtis is now up two games in the series.