‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the dome.
Not a creature was stirring in our vacuum-packed home.
The stockings were hung by the rover with care.
In the hopes that Saint Nicholas would soon breathe our air.
The children were quiet after much aggravation.
Sleeping still now in suspended animation.
And mamma in her bag and I in my gear.
Had just settled our brains after our thirty day “year”.
When out on the mare there arose such a clatter.
There was no air, there should be none of the latter.
Away to the monitor, I hopped in slow-motion.
Flicked on the screen to view the commotion.
The televisual glow soon lit up my face.
From a picture of Earth hanging in space.
When, what to my wand’ring camera should realize.
But a sleigh and reindeer (to much my surprise).
With a little old pilot, so lively and quick.
In a millisecond the computer recognized Saint Nick.
More rapid than the Eagle his courses they came.
And on the free-hydrogen band he called them by name.
“Now, Dasher!, Now Dancer!, Now, Prancer!, Now, Vixen!
On, Armstrong! on Aldrin, on Richard M. Nixon!:
From their distance in orbit to the crater’s far wall.
Now, blast away, blast away, blast away, all!”
As retro-rockets should do when they let fly.
They slowed Santa’s tumble from out of the sky.
Up to the base they landed with such perfection.
His coursers didn’t need a single course correction.
And then in a twinkling I heard the soft boom.
Of thirty-two hooves protected from vacuum.
As I turned of the monitor and was turning around,
I saw old Saint Nick; he’d recently beamed down.
He was dressed all in fur from helmet to boot.
Specially sealed to make a space suit.
His eyes how they twinkled! from out of the glass!
His cheeks were like roses, he really had class.
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow.
(The helmet was opaque, so I really don’t know).
His face may have been hidden, but oh, not his belly.
That shook when he laughed, like a tube full of jelly.
My joyous guffaws soon filled up the place.
When he took off the helmet that covered his face.
He soon filled the stockings then looked with a grin.
Flipped out his communicator and left the way he came in.
He leapt into his sleigh, to his team gave a yell.
And they rose from the moon like a bat out of hell.
But I heard his last cry as he left line-of-sight.
“Merry Christmas from Earth and to all a good night!”
The Bob Files 