‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

not a creature was stirring, not even the optical mouse.

The stockings were hung by the Kindle Fireplace with care

because the digital videocam was in need of repair.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

while visions of XBoxes danced in their heads.

The flash drive was set on max megahertz

the laptop and all tablets were put on alerts.

The iPod was charging, the Netflix were streaming,

Young people everywhere were pleasantly dreaming.

We checked the Cloud and cleaned the plasma screen

we put it on Skype to record the whole scene.

We downloaded a number of total killer apps

Our mobile devices never suffered a lapse.

Our zip drives and Blackberries were very near ready,

When you have 4G, they’re really quite steady.

We Tweeted and Linked-in all through the night

to make sure we had the terminology just right.

We checked all the Web sites and used the search engines,

we clattered on keyboards and hacked with a vengeance.

Then suddenly on the deck, beside the gas grill,

there came a loud sound that gave us a chill.

I went to look to check out the clatter,

to see if something was wrong with my data,

when what to my pixel-ated eyes should appear,

but a mixed-media sleigh and eight remote-controlled reindeer.

I knew in an instant after checking the fax

that Santa was here with his battery packs.

And then in a twinkling I saw from my futon

poor old St. Nick didn’t have his red suit on.

His eyes were all watery, his countenance sour,

he seemed like a PowerPoint without any power.

I asked the old elf why his mouth was a frown,

he said, so sadly, his new iPhone was down.

There will be no gifts tonight, he added apace,

“I have no spreadsheets, nor my database!”

What to do if poor Santa was submerged?

Would we need to get help from Mark Zuckerberg?

We thought and thought of what we were able

before getting on up to the fiber-optic cable.

We began to IM and shared text files for hours,

we even used our real name and administrative powers.

Finally, we got advice from someone who told us,

from someone who knew Bluetooth and even knew Lotus.

Santa, we were told, could do it by hand.

He wasn’t a slave of a high-frequency band.

He didn’t need to text message or to videophone,

he didn’t need a Facebook wall or an IBM clone.

All he’d need was a big sack and even bigger smiles.

He wouldn’t have to download any corrupted files.

His eyes, how they twinkled, his smile gleamed so brightly!

His voicemail was solid, his texting quite sprightly.

He sprang to his sleigh, the reindeer came near;

He started cruise control while still in first gear.

I heard him exclaim as he cruised out of sight,

“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good byte.”