The Night Before Christmas,  from the scientist's perspective.
            (One of my least favorites, but included just because I had it.)


            '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 diminutive 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. Nick.

            The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their respective
            accommodations of repose, were experiencing subconscious visual
            hallucinations of variegated saccarinose fruit confections performing
            choreography through their cerebrums. My conjugal partner and I, attired in
            our nocturnal head-coverings, were about to take slumberous advantage of the
            Arctic-like gloom 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, reflecting
            as it was upon the surface of a recent crystalline aqueous 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 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 beatified
            caller. With this ungulate motive power traveling at a greater 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 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 sum total of the
            thirty-two cloven pedal extremities.

            As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location and was performing a
            pi radians pivot, our distinguished visitant achieved, with utmost celerity,
            via a downward salutation, entry by way of the ceramic smoke passage. He was
            clad entirely in animal integuments, soiled by the ebony residue from
            partial oxidation of carboniferous fuels. His resemblance to a street
            vendor I attributed 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 appurtenances were engorged with crimson circulatory fluid which, its
            chroma suffusing the dermal layers, approximated the retinal sensation
            reflected by the Prunus avium, or sweet cherry. His amusing sub- and
            supralabials resembled nothing so much as a flexible, curved strip of wood
            associated with the American aborigines and their ambient, hirsute, facial
            adornment had an absence of coloring comparable to crystalline frozen
            hydrogen oxide vapor. Clenched firmly between his incisors was the
            posterior projection of acalumet whose gray colloidal aerosol fumes, forming
            a tenuous ellipticaltorus about his occiput, were suggestive of a decorative
            seasonal circlet of holly. His visage was wider than it was high, and when
            he waxed mirthful, his corpulent abdominal region undulated in the manner of
            inpectinated fruit syrup in a colloidal gel state within a hemispherical
            container. He was of Napoleonic stature, 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 being so affected
            by this risiblity. By rapidly lowering and then elevating one eyelid and
            rotating his head slightly eccentricly, he indicated that trepidation on my
            part was superfluous. Without utterance, but with noticeable dispatch, he
            commenced filling the aforementioned appended hosiery with various of the
            articles of merchandise extracted from his aforementioned previously
            dorsally transported cloth receptacle.

            Upon completion of this task, he executed an abrupt pi radian rotation about
            the vertical axis, placed a single manual digit in lateral juxtaposition to
            his olfactory organ, inclined his cranium forward in a gesture of leave
            taking, and effected his egress by salutation up the smoke passage through
            which he had made ingress. He then propelled himself in a short vector onto
            his rustic winter conveyance. Contracting his oral sphincter, he emitted a
            shrill series of notes to the antlered quadrupeds of burden and proceeded to
            soar aloft in a movement hitherto observed 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 the selfsame
            assemblage, my sincerest wishes for a salubriously beneficial and
            gratifyingly pleasurable period between sunset and dawn."
             
             

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