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Twas the Night Before GPA Christmas
Written December 2000
(Note: The original "A Visit from St. Nicholas" was written by Clement Clarke Moore in 1822)

by Tom Taylor ([email protected])
www.geocities.com/natlgeo
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'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through GCT,
Not a container was stirring, not even an empty,
The pedestals were hung by the gates with care,
In hopes that the truckers soon would be there.
The directors were isolated in their gated community, all snug in their beds,
While visions of golf clubs danced in their heads,
And the clerk in her 'kerchief, and I in my GPA cap,
Had just settled down for a long night's work,
When out on the dock there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my office trailer to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the hurricane shutters and threw up my hands.
The moon on the surface of the fast-moving river,
Gave the luster of mid-day to my bones which shivered.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a twenty-foot load, pulled by eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than jockeys his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
"Now, EVERGREEN! Now, SENATOR! Now, HAPAG and CHILEAN!
On, ZIM! On CONTSHIP! On, MAERSK and HANJIN!
To the top of the stack! Then back to the wall!
Now relocate! Relocate! Relocate all!"
As crumpled tallies that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with a jersey barrier, mount to the sky,
So up to the White House the coursers they flew,
With the container full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof,
The water leaking and dripping, caused by each little hoof.
As I watched on the security monitor, and was turning around,
Signed into the building, St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of toys he had flung on the yard,
And he looked like a longshoreman just punching his card.
His eyes -- how they twinkled! His dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
But he didn't smoke it on the dock within fifty feet.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then said "What jerks!"
Laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving it a good blow, up the chimney he rose.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all went back to work, like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight,
"No raise this year for all, and to all, well...Good Luck!"