On Tue, 18 Dec 2007 12:32:21 -0600, ManhattanMan wrote:

It's incomplete.
Picky, picky, picky...

Ok, here's the full version:

The Night Before Christmas
- as told by the guy who writes the FAA's Federal Aviation Regulations

'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 cerebra.

My conjugal partner and I, attired in our nocturnal cranial coverings, were
about to take slumbrous 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 the
fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance without, reflected
as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline aqueous precipitation,
might be said to rival that of the solar meridian itself - thus permitting
my incredulous optical sensor to peruse a miniature airborne runnered
conveyance drawn by an octet of 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 undulate motive power traveling 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 ebon residue from the
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 molar regions and nasal aptenance 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 hirstute 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.

Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the
aforementioned hosiery with 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 affected 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 yuletides to
the planetary constituence, and to that self-same assemblage my sincerest
wishes for a salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable period
between sunset and dawn."

--
Dallas