'Twas The Night Before Tom's Christmas 2025

'Twas the festive season but Santa didn't know how
to deal with the new RAM apocalypse, now!
Who could've predicted this horrid event
in which memory costs rose 500 percent?

He didn't expect this holiday twist —
It's memory-intensive to create his list!
Even Crucial got killed in this big AI boom.
(This boom smells as funky as Zotac's perfume).

But he still had some systems lying around.
Surely one of them would have to be sound!
He had an XPS, Optiplex — oh, what the hell?
Which one is which? They're all just a Dell.

So instead, he switched to an Apple Silicon Mac
and played Cyberpunk to forget the setback.
Then he jumped to a Windows 10 system he'd moved to Linux
and entered his password: 123456.

❄️❄️❄️

But none of these systems made the list the right way.
They all fell like Steam on Silksong's launch day.
So he figured he'd do these holidays with a twist:
He'd simply put everyone onto his list.

Compiling this data would take quite a while.
Santa had what Torvalds called "random turd files."
He found several old lists made in Microsoft Word
and even more data he had stored on a bird.

To collate the data, he had the elves convene,
using prototypes of the new Steam Machine,
and old rigs he updated with a bit of skill,
and a few lucky builds that he found at Goodwill.

Now that the rigs were doing the heavy lifting,
It was time for Santa to put his mind to gifting.
Like 3D-printed loafers that are beyond description
And some great Tom's Hardware Premium subscriptions!

❄️❄️❄️

Gold RTX 5090's would be all the rage.
There were VPNs for people verifying their age.
Elves made hair clips out of old M1 Pros,
And for Intel, a new permanent CEO.

There were non-binary RAM kits on sale at some shops,
and 5070 Ti's with all of their ROPs.
Nintendo Switch 2s without stapled screens,
and TSMC sneakers that go great with your jeans.

"Hey Santa!" cried one elf, looking over his shoulder.
"Why are all these anime girls in your temp folder?"
Santa explained that his JPGs weren't a crime,
But blamed them on a bug in XPG Prime.

With that unfortunate question answered,
He called Rudolph, and Comet, and Dancer, and Prancer.
"Can you stop by the store and try to obtain
some new Xboxes before the price rises again?"

❄️❄️❄️

Then Mrs. Claus came downstairs in shock.
"Santa, look what I found under stockings and socks!"
He felt his jaw drop like it was full of rocks —
It was a whole bunch of RAM he had never unboxed!

Santa couldn't help it — he let out a snort.
Like RDNA 1 and 2, he could have more support!
But he and his crew were saving the day,
with existing computers, the old-fashioned way.

And Santa and friends were all having a ball.
It was the best holiday lead-up that he could Recall.
He might even have extra time to clean up his house
to smell fresher than Asus's aromatic mouse.

It took all of Santa's brains and all the elves' might,
But they had a list, and had gifts, and were ready for flight.
To ensure they had the fuel to get this year's trip right,
They stopped by a Denny's for some Breakfast Bytes.

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

🎅🎄🎁☃️❄️ 🎅🎄🎁☃️❄️ 🎅🎄🎁☃️❄️

The Tom’s Hardware staff first published a holiday poem in 2014 on Christmas Eve. It was updated a little bit and published again each year at the same time. The poem was given a complete overhaul in 2018 and has been rewritten with new stories and references every year since. For more holiday fun, see the versions from 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.