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Article 19964 of rec.humor:
Path: ucdavis!ucbvax!agate!pasteur!ames!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!itsgw!imagine!pawl7.pawl.rpi.edu!brazil
From: brazil@pawl7.pawl.rpi.edu (Timothy E. Onders)
Newsgroups: rec.humor
Subject: 'Twas the Night Before Christmas
Message-ID: <2127@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU>
Date: 17 Dec 88 23:34:08 GMT
Sender: news@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU
Reply-To: brazil@pawl.rpi.edu (Timothy E. Onders)
Organization: Central Services - Troy, NY
Lines: 89
Found on a PC at NASA:
A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS
FOR READERS IN THEIR 23RD
YEAR OF SCHOOLING
'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 cerebra. My conjugal partner and I, attired
in our nocturnal cranial coverings, were about to take slumbrous
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
the fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance without,
reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline
aqueous precipitation, might be said to rival that of the solar meridian
itself -- thus permitting my incredulous optical sensor to peruse a
miniature airborne runnered conveyance drawn by an octet of
diminutive specimens of the genus Rangifer, piloted by a miniscule,
aged chauffeur so ebullient and nimble that it became instantly apparent
to me that he was indeed our anticipated caller. With his
undulate 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 ebon
residue from the 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 molar regions and nasal aptenance
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 hirsuite facial adornment appeared like small, tabular and
columnar crystals of frozen water.
Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smokingpiece 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 the manner of impectinated fruit syrup in a hemispherical
container.
Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the
aforementioned hosiery with 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
affected 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
yuletides to the planetary constituence, and to that self-same
assemblage my sincerest wishes for a salubriously beneficial and
gratifyingly pleasurable period between sunset and dawn."