Scratch

'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. Knitted hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the

wood burning ancestral hearth, 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 smokestack. 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 smokestack. 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."