T'Was The Night Before Xmas For Psuedo-Intellectuals

It Was The Night Before Christmas in Academe
CHRISTMAS IN ACADEME

'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."

Lee Michae