For all technical writers and editors, we hope you enjoy our version of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. Wishing you all a very festive season!
Members of the TWi team, gathered around the office Christmas tree
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a laptop was stirring, not even a mouse.
Our headphones were hung by monitors with care,
In hopes that our screens wouldn’t need to be shared.
Our projects were nestled all snug in their folders,
While unfinish’d graphics danc’d in placeholders;
SMEs from their feedback, and we writers from guides,
Were winding down quietly for winter’s reprise
When out on the cloud there arose such a clatter,
We sprang from our desktops to see what was the matter.
To Windows we flew like Adobe Flash Player,
Tore open our folders, and brought up the browsers.
What to our wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old editor, so lively and quick,
We knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.
He was render’d by Pixar, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnish’d with pixels of soot.
More rapid than Chrome his proofreaders came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and call’d them by name:
“Now M Dash, now Colon, now Hyphen and Ellipsis,
On Comma, on Apostrophe, on Bracket and Parenthesis;
To the top of the proxy! To the top of the firewall!
Dash away, hash away, slash away all!”
Refreshing the page, I heard through the Internet
The prancing and pausing of each reindeer’s edit.
As I minimis’d the window, and was going to shut down,
In 3D display, St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was technically accurate, clear and concise,
And I laugh’d, despite standards and guidelines.
With a wink of his cursor, and a nod of his head,
He soon let me know I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not of Word, but instead, DITAworks,
And corrected my documents, then turn’d with a jerk;
Having sav’d the files to the client CMS,
He gave me a nudge, and publish’d the PDFs.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew, like tweets on Twitter;
I heard him exclaim, ere he dissolv’d on the screen –
Happy Christmas to all, and a Happy New Year.
