2006

Everything seems to be going high tech.  Computers in your pocket.  Music and video on your cell phone.  Well, we thought it was about time that Santa updated his manual systems and added computers.

T'was the night before Christmas, and Santa was vexed,

He looked at the screen where he'd just lost his text.

This year was different with all the electronics,

What happened to the old days with Hooked on Phonics?

The trend was high tech with all of the toys,

That's what he was delivering to good girls and boys.

An Xbox for Bobby, an IPOD for Sue,

In all kinds of colors, like pink, orange, and blue.

Seeing the trend, Santa did follow suit,

And digitized the Pole to all things minute.

It was time he moved into the digital age,

Besides, fancy electronics were all the rage.

In years before the tasks took forever,

To handle it all, one had to be very clever.

But now the machines handle every detail,

The time-honored systems in comparison pale.

It used to be manual, lists for this, checks for that,

With the digital age, that way is old hat.

And now all the work can be done in a minute,

Faster than sugarplum fairies can spin it.

Santa was geared up from step one to the end,

Every move checked by his virtual friend.

Lists were created and presents matched to names,

There would be no mistakes, and no one to blame.

To keep Santa going on his ‘round-the-world trip,

There was an MP3 player with songs stored to chip.

To keep his course true and to track his progress,

He’d check his position with a new GPS.

A computer would mark every step of the way,

It was mounted on the dash of his reindeer pulled sleigh.

All the stops had been entered not once, but thrice,

And the corresponding names of those who’d been nice.

The latest in software to meet every need,

Would keep him moving at the best possible speed.

His trip would be the easiest of any before,

One that would go down in Christmas Eve lore.

Then something did happen that made things go sour,

The North Pole had suddenly lost all its power.

The computers overheated, a circuit had blown,

That this might happen had been totally unknown.

Even through the darkness, the sleigh did get loaded,

(Without the computers some stuff got miscoded).

But the portable units on board the sleigh,

Were working just fine, so it was up, up and away.

But things weren’t going quite as expected,

A critical software upgrade was neglected.

The system was slow, things were not up to date,

This was causing Santa to run very late.

The MP3 player was stuck on one song,

Six hours of “Achy Breaky Heart” was oh, so wrong.

Santa finished his rounds in Boston when,

The GPS said he was in Cleveland… again!

The computer was glowing, it started to blink,

It caused Santa concern, it caused him to think.

The problems worsened as he continued to fly,

He was left with two options, abort or retry.

Santa tried everything, and as one last resort,

He picked up his cell phone and called for support.

The tech in New Delhi said, “Don’t panic, there’s a way,”

But how in mid-trip do you reboot a sleigh?

Then he remembered, emergency procedure twenty-four,

And put his boot through the CD drive door.

The screen went blank, the lights stopped blinking,

And Santa was wondering “Is the earth still shrinking?”

When suddenly, the screen lit up all aglow,

And the lists of people and presents did flow.

The GPS unit showed the correct location,

Which made Santa smile with a bit of elation.

With things working right, the journey progressed,

As the computer brought up the next address.

It was smooth flying from there on out,

This system might work, but Santa had doubts.

If this type of problem should ever return,

His Christmas Eve flights could crash and burn.

With his deliveries done, he returned to the Pole,

There were reports to review, did he reach his goal?

He read, and he yawned, it was all pretty dry,

But there was one tiny detail that did catch his eye.

The gift list and names list did not coincide,

They were off by one, and it was worldwide.

So if the gifts you got are not right for you,

They belong somewhere else, that much is true.

But Santa did sigh, as he gave holiday cheer,

“Merry Christmas to all, I’ll switch them next year.”

Copyright Ó 2006 by

Brian and Shirley Dean