Season's Greetings Revisited

[Ferstel John W <jwf3885 -at- USL -dot- EDU>]

               THE NOCTURNAL PERIOD PRECEDING YULETIDE
                           -Author unknown-

    T'was 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 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 travelling at what may possibly have been more
vertiginous velocity than patriotic alar predicates, he vociferated
loudly, expelling 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 of said pathway.  His resemblance to a street
vendor I attributed largely to the plethora of assorted playthings
which be bore dorsally in a commodious cloth receptacle.

    His visual input centers were scintillating with the reflected
luminosity, while his submaxillary 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 albino'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 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 impectated fruit
syrup in a hemispherical container.  He was, in short, neither more
nor less than an obese, jocund, multigenerian gnome, the optical
perception of whom rendered me visibly frolicsome despite every effort
to refrain from so being. By swiftly lowering, 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 hosiery from that dorsally transported woven container.
Upon completion of this task, he executed an aboutface, 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 heretofore observable chiefly among the seed
bearing portions of a common weed.  But I overheard his vocalization
beyond the limits of visibility: "Ecstatic yuletide to the planetary
constituency, and to the selfsame assemblage, my sincerest wishes for
a salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable period between
sunset and the dawn!"
---
Contributed to TWSUBBS by Alan Amey, 11 Dec 91