It's a rerun, but I'll send it again this year as we've probably picked
up some new folks over the year. Enjoy...

=============================
'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 domicile,
including that species of domestic rodent known as illus musculus.
Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the anterior 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 epithet 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 evanaceous 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 diminutive airborne runnered conveyance drawn by eight bantam
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 visitant. With his ungulate motive power
traveling at what may possibly have been a more vertiginous velocity
than our patriotic alar predators, he vociferated loudly, expelled
breath musically through contracted labia and addressed each of the
octet by his or her respective cognomens--"Now Dasher, now Dancer ... et
alli--" while 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 the superior portion of my body from its erstwhile
location, and was performing an alacritous hemispherical 180-degree
pivot, our distinguished sojourner 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 ebon residue from oxidations of
carboniferous fuels which had accumulated on the walls. 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 his
ambient hirsute facial adornments appeared like small, tubular and
columnar crystals of frozen water.

Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smoking piece whose gray
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 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 rended me
visibly frolicsome despite every effort to refrain from so being. By
rapidly lowering and then elevating the eyelid and rotating his head
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 previously aforementioned
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
posture of leave-taking, and forthwith effected his egress by reversibly
renegotiating 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
seed-bearing portions of a common weed. But I overheard his parting
exclamations, audible immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond the
limits of visibility: "Ecstatic yuletide to the planetary constituency,
and to the selfsame assemblage, my sincerest wishes for a salubriously
beneficial and gratifying pleasurable period between sunset and dawn."


--
Kevin Miller
http://www.alaska.net/~atftb
Juneau, Alaska
Registered Linux User No: 307357