Twas the
Night Before Christmas
Technical
Writer for US Government Style
'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual
Yuletide celebration, and throughout our 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.
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 supra labials 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."
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Technical Writer for US Government Style
