The Night Before Twitmas

By David Niall Wilson

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

Not an interface stirring, not even a mouse;

The E-cards were printed with Holiday Flair,

And a Blip.FM Christmas tune hung in the air;

The rugrats were down for the count in their beds

While visions of Playstations danced in their heads;

And ma with her zinfandel, I with cognac,

Had just settled down to build, box, wrap and stack;

When on both of our speakers, there arose such a clatter,

We refreshed our screens to see what was the matter.

To open new windows I sprang in a flash,

Double-clicked Tweetdeck and awaited a crash.

My home page awash in ani-gif Snow,

Gave a holiday luster to the pages below.

When what to my tired bloodshot eyes did appear,

But an @tweet from Santa all filled with good cheer.

A 140 character message so slick,

That I knew in an instant it came from St. Nick.

More rapid than fingers can fly, the tweets came,

And he messaged his reindeer @ each one by name,

“@Dasher! @ Dancer! @ Prancer @Vixen!

@ Comet! @Cupid! @ Donder @Blitzen!

To the Twitter Elite! To the folks at Twitwall!

Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”

As bits in a torrent with DSL fly,

When they hook up and download with only one try,

So up to the top of the Twitter Trends flew,

Those Twittering Reindeer, and St. Nicholas too.

And quickly I favorited each one as proof,

Of the pokes and the prods of each Qwertying hoof.

Then I started to type a reply when I found,

That the program had closed and the OS shut down.

I turned to the fireplace and sat back in shock,

For despite ADT, the deadbolt, and the lock,

The man of the hour had invaded our space,

And he stood there, arms crossed, with a smile on his face.

He had widgets and gadgets and software and more,

And he spilled it all out of his bag to the floor,

Then he unplugged the monitors, Wi-Fi and cable,

And stacked them all neatly on Ma’s coffee table.

He waved his fat arms and the phosphors, they flew,

And he showed us a new thing that Santa can do,

While all we could do was to sit, and to stare,

He opened up Facebook right there in the air!

He filled in the profiles, our children and friends

And the others neglected by retweets and sends.

He clicked on the X in the far upper right,

And he winked, and it all disappeared from our sight.

Then laying his finger aside of his nose,

He turned to our chimney, and up it he rose.

We heard music and laughter, we rose and we hugged,

Then we glanced at the Internet cables, and shrugged,

For the moment the lolcats and e-mail and Spore,

By their silence gave Christmas a little bit more,

Of the spirit of family, magic and cheer,

That we expect from this time of the year.

We stepped to the window and watched the night sky,

As the sleigh, and the reindeer, and Santa flew by…

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,

“Happy Twitmas to all, and to all a good-night.”