'Twas The Night Before Tom's Christmas 2019

[Editor’s Note: The Tom’s Hardware staff first published a version this poem in 2014 on Christmas Eve. We updated it a little bit and ran it again each year at the same time. In that spirit, the poem was given a complete overhaul in 2018 and has gotten a full rewrite again this year to reflect events and tech from 2019. We thank you all for the support and participation you offer throughout the year, and we wish you Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year.]

‘Twas the holiday time and far from Tom’s Lab,
Santa gave quantum computing a stab.
It used so much power his factory slowed,
And plunged the North Pole into endless dark mode.

“Oh no,” cried Santa. “What do I do?”
So he called up Bob Swan and Lisa Su,
And others who could help save holiday cheer,
And then had his robot bring him some beer.

Computers ‘round the world started to chirp,
New Mac Pros took care of Santa’s work.
3rd-gen Threadrippers to make Santa’s maps,
And Cascade Lake for stealth to keep him under wraps.

Nvidia tossed in all its Super cards,
And Qualcomm’s Arm chips were all working hard.
Anyone who made any type of chip,
Tried to save Christmas from this blackout blip. 

Slowly the North Pole lights turned back on,
They shined against the Ice Lake that’s Santa’s front lawn.
“Hey Santa!” said Mrs. Claus, “Have you heard the news?”
“The elves are making pancakes on CPUs!”

Santa, Mrs. Claus and all of the elves,
Were all very tired but proud of themselves.
“Wow,” Mrs. Claus said. “Twas down to the wire.”
“Like Intel’s Skylake, I should retire.”

“Nonsense,” said Santa, he laughed very loud.
“You work harder than the Google Stadia cloud!”
Then faster than Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons get drift,
They both focused on everyone giving gifts.

Xerox tried to get HP into the chapel,
And Intel gave its 5G modem business to Apple.
Valve gave folks a game that’s not Half-Life 3,
And the ‘net gave fan art of Intel’s Xe.

And for those who say miracles never appear,
The Razer Toaster became official this year.
And other surprises did come about
Apple and Qualcomm chose to hug it out.

“Santa!” The elves cried, “For more gifts we search!”
Then Santa said “There is Tom’s Hardware merch!”
The t-shirts and hoodies come in all sizes
And the hats and the stickers are lovely surprises!

The Reindeer were getting ready for the trip.
And Santa called in the Asus ROG Mothership,
With a black and gold design that looks statuesque,
But enough power to play games away from his desk.

Among all of the gifts and all of the riches
Was a MacBook that finally ditched butterfly switches,
A Radeon 5700 XT
And Surfaces with Intel, Arm and AMD.

The sleigh was loaded with all the tech tricks,
It supports 5G and Wi-Fi 6,
A Core i9-9900KS at 5GHz on all cores,
And a ton of RGB lighting, of course.

So if you see that sleigh in the air,
Think of all the tech floating up there,
And the people that worked hard so that you could see
All of this gear beneath a menorah or tree.

No matter what you’re celebrating this year,
Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or Christmas with cheer;
We at Tom’s Hardware wish you the best,
And we’ll be at our benches, running our tests.