twas the night before christmas

rymus

I'm sorry for wasting your time
(the second part is a welcome change from the traditional though)

Happy Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that ST. NICHOLAS soon would be there.
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter's nap.
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer.
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name.
"Now, DASHER! now, DANCER! now, PRANCER and VIXEN!
On, COMET! on CUPID! on, DONNER and BLITZEN!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my hand, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes -- how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL,
AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT."





THE 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 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
appelations 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 slumbrous advantage of the hibernal
darkness
when upon the avenaceous exterior portion of the grounds there ascended
such
a cacaphony 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 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 traveling at what may have 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, now Prancer,
etc., 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 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 albions 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 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. He was,
in
short, neither more or less than an obese, jocund, multigenarian gnome,
the
optical perception of whom rendered me risibly rolicsome 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
hosiery with various of the aforementioned articles of merchandise
extracted
from his aforementioned previously dorsally transported cloth
receptacle.
Upon completion of his task, he executed an abrupt about face, placed a
single manual digit in lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory organ,
inclined his miniscule 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 selfsame assemblage, my sincerest
wishes
for a salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable period
between
sunset and dawn."

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

lol, second one is brilliant

Don1

Eccellente senior!

DeadBankClerk

I heartily endorse