TechnoBabel: Night Before Xmas

The occasion was the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual
Yuletide celebration, and throughout the perimeters of the locus of residence
occuped by yours truly, kinetic activity was nowhere in evidence among the
biological population, including that species of domestic rodent denoted in
zoological nomenclature as Mus musculus. Hosiery was meticulously suspended
from the forward margin of the hearth-site, pursuant to anticipatory pleasure
regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric philanthropist among whose
folkloric appellation includes the honorific title of St. Nicholas.


The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their respective dormative
accommodations, were experiencing subconscious visual hallucinations of
variegated fructose confections moving rhythmically through their cerebrums.
This observer and conjugal partner, attired in respective nocturnal cranial
coverings, were about to take slumberous advantage of the hibernal darkness
when upon the avenaceous exterior portion of the residential site there
ascended such a cacophony of dissonance that he felt compelled to arise with
alacrity from the place of repose for the purpose of ascertaining the precise
source thereof.
Hastening to the casement, your observer forthwith opened the barriers previously
secluding a fenestration, noting without that the lunar brilliance, reflected
as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline precipitation, might be
observed to rival the luminosity of the solar meridian itself - thus permitting
incredulous optical sensory organs to behold a miniature airborne
runnered-conveyance drawn by eight diminutive specimens of the genus Rangifer,
piloted by a minuscule, geriatric chauffeur so ebullient and lissom that it
became instantly apparent that he was indeed the anticipated noctivicant
caller.


With an ungulate motive power travelling at what may possibly have been more
vertiginous velocity than aquiline predators, he vociferated loudly, expelled
breath musically through contracted labia, and addressed each of the octet by
his/her respective cognomen - "Now Dasher, now Dancer..." et alia - guiding
them to the uppermost exterior level of the abode, through which structure your
observer could readily distinguish the concatenations of each of 32 cloven
pedal extremities.


As your humble observer retracted his cranium from its erstwhile location, and
was performing a 180-degree pivot, the distinguished visitant achieved -- with
utmost celerity and utilizing a downward saltation - entry via the smoke
ventilation passage. He was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by an
ebony-like residue from oxidations of carboniferous fuels. His resemblance to a
street vendor could be attributed largely to the plethora of assorted
playthings which he bore dorsally in a commodious cloth receptacle.
His optical orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his
submaxillary dermal indentations gave every evidence of an 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 drupe of Prunus
avium. His amusing sub- and supralabials resembled 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 nicotine imput device whose grey fumes,
forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput, were suggestive of a decorative
seasonal circlet of Aquifoliaceae. 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
summary, an obese, jocund, multigenarian gnome, the optical perception of whom
rendered this observer 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 was groundless.
Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the aforementioned appended
hosiery with various articles of merchandise extracted from his aforementioned
previously dorsally transported cloth receptacle. Upon completion of this
enterprise, 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 the
smoke ventilation 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, and proceeded to soar aloft in a movement
hitherto observable chiefly among the seed-bearing portions of botanic species
such as Onopodon. But your humble observer overheard the parting exclamation of
the aforementioned, audible immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond the
limits of immediate visibility:

      "Ecstatic Yuletide to the planetary constituency, and to 
       that self-same assemblage, my sincerest wishes for a 
       salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable 
       remainder of the current nocturnal cycle."

(From many sources.)