'Twas The Night Before Christmas
as written by a lawyer

'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 (party of the 
first part), 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 (party of the 
second part).

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 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 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 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 self same assemblage,
my sincerest wishes for a salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly 
pleasurable period between sunset and dawn."