With apologies to Clement Clarke Moore

'Twas the night before Christmas when all through the land,
A few marketers were stirring still promoting their brand.
The stock market had fallen quite far without care,
But retailers hoped sales would still happen there.
The children were texting and neglecting their beds,
While visions of Wii danced in their heads.
Mamma at her PC and I at my Mac
Had just settled down for a long IM Chat.

When all of a sudden I logged onto Twitter,
What sprang from my Mac was a Motrin-like flitter.
I'd given up on Windows, and downloaded Flash
Filtered out Nigerian Spam and watched a YouTube of The Clash.
But there on the net from my peeps in the know
Were dozens of warnings, how the messages would flow.

Then what to my tired eyes should appear
But an inbox packed full of late holiday cheer.

But I lacked a print driver to print them out quick,
And I thought for a minute, it might be a phishing trick.

More rapid than eagles, the messages came,
And all were so personalized, they named me by name.

From Macy's, from J. Crew, from Proflowers too,
From Williams-Sonoma, Apple, even the Lincoln Park Zoo.

In one, at the top of the frame, at the top of it all
Was a giant image (that with images off) I couldn't see at all.

So into the house these messages flew,
So many came in I didn't know what to do.
And then in a twinkling, I heard an alert;
An SMS message from DQ about a frozen dessert.
As I reached out my hand to hit the delete,
In came a couple more marketing tweets.

As I drew back my hand and was turning around,
From my computer I heard a great sound.
The screen had gone black and it would not reboot;
I knew in a moment, a replacement would cost some big loot.
A bundle of software I'd have to buy back,
To say nothing of the passwords I'd forgotten to track.
My eyes how they teared up, my wife was not merry;
My data was toast and I had a back-up of which I was quite wary.

My droll little computer had crashed with a blow,
All because of this big message flow.
So despite a big data pipe and my clenched teeth,
Christmas messages had smoked my Mac from beneath.

I gave up all hope and just went to the deli
To smother my sorrows in a peanut butter and jelly.
But when I got there I saw a small elf
And I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself.
With a wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
He let me know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but texted me his work.
He said, "He who spams is truly a jerk.
But you who are prudent get permission from those
So you can send messages and none will oppose."

He sprang from his table and Twittered a note:
Your Mac is now working and this you may quote.
For email messages, he said, just have to be right.
Then he smiled and he said, "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night."

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