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Carnival, created by George Clark but drawn and written for most of its lifetime by Dick Turner, is a difficult strip to find information on. This is odd, because it had a fairly long run, from 1937 to 1982. It ran on Sundays for the entirety of that period, and daily from 1945 to 1976. It seems the strip just failed to make an impact on people. Given some of the examples of this that I've seen, I'm guessing said impact would be difficult to make with such dull writing. The artwork is wonderful, though, and it's likely why the strip lasted so long.
I may have written about this before, but when I was growing up I always remember that on Christmas morning my parents would make me and my siblings eat breakfast before opening any of the presents. It was the only day of the year that we ate Pop-Tarts, which I believe is because they could be prepared and eaten quickly, therefore allowing us to get to the present opening sooner. The parents in this comic strip clearly have no such rule, but the father's train lure tactic is quite clever. It also seems to be quite effective, though it may backfire as soon as the track loops around.