'Twas An Internet Christmas...
A parody of the Clement Clarke Moore poem

By Nick Nichols

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house,
Many creatures were surfing, most using a mouse.
The bookmarks were hung in the browsers with care,
In hopes that Web shoppers soon would be there.

The children with laptops all surfed in their beds,
While visions of Pokemons danced in their heads.
And mom in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Were wondering what online resources to tap.

When out on the Web, there arose such a clatter,
I sprang to my desktop to see what was the matter.
Away to the search engines I flew like a flash,
Desperately wanting to part with some cash.

The .25 dot pitch of my screen made it so,
To give lustre to the objects in my browser window.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But an animated gif with eight tiny reindeer.

This javascript applet, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be a trick.
More rapid than eagles these images they came,
And they whistled, and shouted, and called me by name:

"On, anxious surfer with shopping affliction,
Now, great consumer, we'll feed your addiction!"
To the Internet gift store! To the Internet mall!
Now click away! click away! click away all!

As anxiety mounts ere our wild dollars fly,
To slow-loading pages, we bid a quick good-bye,
So up to the page-top our cursors they flew,
With a file full of bookmarks, and 404 errors, too.

And then, in a twinkling, I saw on my display,
The prancing and pawing of cookies, no way!
With mouse in hand, as I was surfing around,
Down my ISP channel SaintNicholas.com came with a bound.

This site it was dressed with great things head to foot,
As fast-loading graphics on my screen they were put.
Large images and banners and counters it did lack.
This site sure stood out from the rest of the pack!

Its headline, how it twinkled! Its sub-head how merry!
Making me want to read on in a hurry.
Its company logo had a profile of low,
And its background appeared as white as the snow.

My attention it held with tight copy to read,
As benefits flowed freely, straight at my need.
My interest it kept and caused no distraction,
As it spurred me onward, to take some fast action.

As I selected my gifts, as if from a shelf,
I was ready to purchase, in spite of myself.
A secure ordering server to which I was led,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

It spoke not a word, but went straight to its work,
And completed my order with nary a quirk.
And thus avoiding my past shopping woes,
With a click of my mouse, up the bandwidth I rose.

I sprang back to cyberspace, my speakers did whistle.
But before the site disappeared like a missile,
I heard it exclaim, ere it went out of sight,
"Merry Christmas To All, And To All A Good-Night!"