Technical Night Before Christmas

   '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 subconcious visual
   hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving rhythmically
   through their cerebrums.
   My conjugal partner and I, attired in our nocturnal had 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, nothing thereupon that the lunar brilliance without,
   reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline
   precipitation, might be said 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 miniscule, 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 vertignious 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 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 wary 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 commodius
   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 elllipse 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 than 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 the aforementioned previously
   dorsally transported cloth receptacle.
   Upon completion of this task, he executed an abrupt 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 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.