**** 'Twas the Night Before Christmas  ****
                  As Written by the Government
 
 'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual
 Yuletide celebration, and throughout the place of residence, kinetic
 activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential,
 including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus (mouse).
 Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the wood
 burning caloric apparatus, pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure
 regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric philanthropist among
 whose folkloric appellations is the honorific title of St. Nicholas.
 
 The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their respective
 accommodations of repose, were experiencing subconscious visual
 hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving rhythmically
 through their cerebrums.  My conjugal partner and I, attired in our
 nocturnal head coverings, were about to take slumberous advantage of the
 hibernal darkness when upon the avenaceous exterior portion of the
 grounds there ascended such a cacophony of dissonance that I felt
 compelled to arise with alacrity from my place of repose for the purpose
 of ascertaining the precise source thereof.
 
 Hastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers sealing this
 fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance without,
 reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline
 precipitation, might be said to rival that of the solar meridian itself
 - thus permitting my incredulous optical sensory organs to behold a
 miniature airborne runnered conveyance drawn by eight diminutive
 specimens of the genus Rangifer, piloted by a minuscule, aged chauffeur
 so ebullient and nimble that it became instantly apparent to me that he
 was indeed our anticipated caller. With his ungulate motive power
 traveling at what may possibly have been more vertiginous velocity than
 patriotic alar predators, he vociferated loudly, expelled breath
 musically through contracted labia, and addressed each of the octet by
 his or her respective cognomen - "Now Dasher, now Dancer..." et al. -
 guiding them to the uppermost exterior level of our abode, through which
 structure I could readily distinguish the concatenations of each of the
 32 cloven pedal extremities.
 
 As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was
 performing a 180-degree pivot, our distinguished visitant achieved -
 with utmost celerity and via a downward leap - entry by way of the smoke
 passage. He was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by the ebony
 residue from oxidations of carboniferous fuels which had accumulated on
 the walls thereof. His resemblance to a street vendor I attributed
 largely to the plethora of assorted playthings which he bore dorsally in
 a commodious cloth receptacle.
 
 His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his
 submaxillary dermal indentations gave every evidence of engaging
 amiability. The capillaries of his malar regions and nasal appurtenance
 were engorged with blood which suffused the subcutaneous layers, the
 former approximating the coloration of Albion's floral emblem, the
 latter that of the Prunus avium, or sweet cherry.  His amusing sub- and
 supralabials resembled nothing so much as a common loop knot, and their
 ambient hirsute facial adornment appeared like small, tabular and
 columnar crystals of frozen water.
 
 Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smoking piece whose grey
 fumes, forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput, were suggestive of a
 decorative seasonal circlet of holly. His visage was wider than it was
 high, and when he waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulent abdominal region
 undulated in the manner of impectinated fruit syrup in a hemispherical
 container. He was, in short, neither more nor less than an obese,
 jocund, multigenarian gnome, the optical perception of whom rendered me
 visibly frolicsome despite every effort to refrain from so being. By
 rapidly lowering and then elevating one eyelid and rotating his head
 slightly to one side, he indicated that trepidation on my part was
 groundless.
 
 Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the
 aforementioned appended hosiery with various of the aforementioned
 articles of merchandise extracted from his aforementioned previously
 dorsally transported cloth receptacle.  Upon completion of this task, he
 executed an abrupt about-face, placed a single manual digit in lateral
 juxtaposition to his olfactory organ, inclined his cranium forward in a
 gesture of leave-taking, and forthwith effected his egress by
 renegotiating (in reverse) the smoke passage. He then propelled himself
 in a short vector onto his conveyance, directed a musical expulsion of
 air through his contracted oral sphincter to the antlered quadrupeds of
 burden, and proceeded to soar aloft in a movement hitherto observable
 chiefly among the seed-bearing portions of a common weed. But I
 overheard his parting exclamation, audible immediately prior to his
 vehiculation beyond the limits of visibility: "Ecstatic Yuletide to the
 planetary constituency, and to that self same assemblage, my sincerest
 wishes for a salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable period
 between sunset and dawn."
 
 From: Ray

Wil Stark, wstark04 (at) pobox _dot_com

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