The night before Christmas - A bed time story from the Rodent

Victor · 03-12-2003 9:25pm #1

'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 my bed to se what was the matter.
Away to the windows I flew like a flash!
I grabbed my new .50 Cal, and threw back the sash!

The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow,
Gave light to the sniper scope pointed below.
When what into my wandering sight 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.

I chambered a round with a metallic 'click',
and prayed that the new custom trigger wouldn't stick,
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
As I squeezed down 8 times I whispered their names,
"Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen!
BOOM, Comet! BOOM Cupid! Boom, Donner, Boom, Blitzen!
I got 5 on the porch, I took 3 on the wall,
They tried to Dash Away, Dash away, but I got 'em ALL!!

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When the sleigh met the Claymores, it shot to the sky,
So up to the house-top the presents they flew,
The remains of the sleigh, and St. Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The thunderous sound of exploding loot!
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 armaments he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack,
His eyes -- were all bloodshot! his temples were horned!
His cheeks were like cankers, his nose like a thorn!
His droll little mouth was drawn flat like a gash,
And the beard of his chin was all covered in ash,
The ring of a grenade he held clamped in his teeth
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.

He had a knife in each hand and one was a machete
You could see he didn't use it for just spreading jelly,
He was chubby and plump, but this was no elf,
I could see I was looking at Satan Claus himself!
And I laughed when I saw him, (Though I'd widdled in fear)
'I thought This time I'd got you - you soul stealing queer'
In a wink of an eye, and a twist of his head,
he fixed me in his gaze, and it filled me with dread!
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
and filled all the stockings with Anthrax - The JERK!
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose,
He sprang to his sleigh, and I gave him a whistle!
I blew him away, like down from a thistle,
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he flew out of sight,
"Offed by a Rodent! - This has not been my best night."

feylya · 03-12-2003 9:32pm

Technical 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 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 subconcious visual
hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving rhythmically
through their cerebrums.
My conjugal partner and I, attired in our nocturnal had 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, nothing thereupon that the lunar brilliance without,
reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline
precipitation, might be said 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 travelling at what may possibly have
been
more vertignious 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 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 wary 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 commodius
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 elllipse 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 than 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 the aforementioned previously
dorsally transported cloth receptacle.
Upon completion of this task, he executed an abrupt aboutface,
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.