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(my apologies to Clement Moore - who is, I'm sure, rolling over in his grave)
T’was the night before Christmas and all through the dome, not an alien was stirring. Not even a clone.
My mate in her tail curler and I in my crest cap, had just settled down for a long diurnal nap.
The androids were stacked in the store room with care, in hopes that St. Rpdzswik soon would be there.
The hybrids were nestled all snug in their tanks, while concoctions of nourishing liquids coursed through their ranks.
When out on the landing pad there arose such a clatter, I climbed out of my anti-grav hammock to see what was the matter. Away to the view port I stumbled in a daze and looked out on the landscape covered in haze.
The light of the moons shining down on the dome cast a lustrous reflection on the hydroponics bay below.
When what to my wondering eyes should appear but a bright red flying saucer with blinking lights on the rear. With a little Gray driver so busy and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Rpdzswik.
As fast as a comet his spaceship it came, pulled by eight balls of swamp gas, and he called them by name - now, Dweezel! now, Gkrnoid! now Phrip and Blok. on, Lizgrid! on Fladz! on Zsdig and Rodogz!
Round and round they circled, looking for a place to land, and nearly crashed into a dune of red sand.
After recalibrating his computer to avoid another goof, in a twinkling moment I heard him touch down on the roof.
As I rubbed my eyes and thought I must be dreaming, with a swishing sound he came down the heat vent in the ceiling.
He was short and stocky – a right strange-looking elf – and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself. His eyes, how big they were, with no ears or nose, he was bald and gray with odd looking clothes.
He was dressed in a suit made of silver lamè and although I quizzed him, he had nothing to say.
He held in his hand, instead of a cell phone, a little black box that emitted a tone. I ducked behind the vid-screen, thinking I was in peril, but it was only a music box playing a Christmas carol.
He deftly ignored me and turned to his job, filling all the clone socks that were hung on the knobs. He worked quickly and quietly giving everyone their desire, then he winked at me and began to retire.
He focused his anti-grav wand on the ceiling overhanger, pressed a button and rose to the top of the chamber.
Back up the shaft to his waiting conveyance, then he left like a spirit exiting a séance.
But he telepathically exclaimed, as he flew out of sight – ET has left the building! And to all a good night!
