The Night Before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through HQ

Not a ship was stirring, not even the crews;

The watch stations were manned though few seemed to fear,

That a blip on the screens would ever show there;

The Admirals were nestled all snug in their racks;

While visions of railguns danced in their heads;

The Chiefs in the goat locker, and I in my Whites,

Had just settled down with no enemy in sight,

When o’er the 1MC there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from the head to see what was the matter.

Away to CIC I flew like a flash,

Tore through the passage and threw open the hatch.

When what to my wondering eyes did appear,

But an incoming bogey, already too near,

With an evasive maneuver so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment we might take a hit.

More rapid than Hornets the bogey still came,

So I called for a scramble and called them by name:

"Now, Hornets! now, Turkeys! now Rhinos I call!

Launch the alert fighters, now launch them all!

The intercept geometry didn’t look right,

I knew then and there we were in for a fight;

The sensors were locking, the missiles spun up,

We might be beaten but we’d never give up;

And then, in a twinkling, we made our ID

It was just Santa;  I should have known it was he.

His sleigh was more stealthy than a Raptor could be;

And unlike a Lightning, it could pull lots of g’s.

As we secured from GQ and began to stand down,

I started to smile and loosen my frown.

A wink of my eye and a shake of my head

Soon let the crew know they had nothing to dread;

And then we received a general broadcast,

A hearty Ho, Ho! As his blip faded fast.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—

“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”