Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house,
Not a peripheral was stirring, not even my mouse.

I with my Xbox and wife with the same
had just settled down to a nice co-op game.
I covered the front, she took the rear
our enemies had a dynamic duo to fear.

At a loud crash, I arose from the chair
wondering "what could be happening down there?"
We entered the room and what did we see,
but two surprised cats and a sad Christmas tree.

"But wait, what is that in the paws of the kitten?"
Something unexpected, something unbidden.
A gift certificate for Amazon, another for Fry's,
both looked like glittering gold in my geek eyes.

My imagination went wild, it just wouldn't stop,
so many ideas, my head might just pop.
But then I wondered "from where did this appear?"
and the wife agreed "this wasn't just here."

I scanned the room and looked for the source,
everything was in order as a matter of course.
Everthing was in place, right where it belonged.
But wait.. that's not right.. that's entirely wrong.

The books were all sorted according to writer,
even the whiteboard was a little bit whiter.
The cables were untangled and sorted with care,
I couldn't move, I stood there and stared.

This didn't make sense, how could it be?
Is this a big joke, is someone messing with me?
I checked my computer but it was fine.
I still had ten bugs waiting.. No, now nine.

Then eight then seven then six, now five,
what is happening is this thing alive?
Another minute and what did I see
but twenty-eight commits in the source tree.

I looked at the code and something was wrong,
I knew my coming nights would be way too long.
The code was small and fast but I wanted to hurl,
the whole damned thing was written in Perl.