'Twas The Night Before Christmas (Lawyer 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 travelling 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 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
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."