The antennas reached up 
From the tower, quite high, 
To catch the weak signals 
That bounced from the sky.

The children, Technicians, 
Took their HT's to bed, 
And dreamed of the day 
They'd be Extras, instead.

Mom put on her headphones, 
I plugged in the key, 
And we tuned 40 meters 
For that rare ZK3.

When the meter was pegged 
By a signal with power. 
It smoked a small diode, 
And, I swear, shook the tower.

Mom yanked off her phones, 
And with all she could muster 
Logged a spot of the signal 
On the DX PacketCluster,

While I ran to the window 
And peered up at the sky, 
To see what could generate 
RF that high.

It was way in the distance, 
But the moon made it gleam - 
A flying sleigh, 
With an eight element beam,

And a little old driver 
Who looked slightly mean. 
So I though for a moment 
That it might be Wayne Green.

But no, it was Santa, 
The Santa of Hams, 
On a mission this Christmas 
To clean up the bands.

He circled the tower, 
Then stopped in his track, 
And he slid down the coax 
Right into the shack.

While Mom and I hid 
Behind stacks of CQ,
This Santa of hamming 
Knew just what to do.

He cleared off the shack desk 
Of paper and parts, 
And filled out all my late 
QSLs, for a start.

He ran copper braid, 
Took a steel rod and pounded 
It into the earth 
Till the station was grounded.

He tightened loose fittings, 
Resoldered connections, 
Cranked down modulation, 
Installed lightning protection.

He neutralized tubes 
In my linear amp... 
(Never worked right before -- 
Now it works like a champ).

A new low-pass filter 
Cleaned up the TV. 
He corrected the settings 
In my TNC.

He repaired the computer 
That wouldn't compute, 
And he backed up the hard drive 
And got it to boot.

Then, he reached really deep 
In the bag that he brought, 
And he pulled out a big box. 
"A new rig?" I thought!

"A new Kenwood? An Icom? 
A Yaesu, for me?" 
(If he thought I'd been bad 
It might be QRP!)

Yes! The Ultimate station! 
How could I deserve this? 
Could it be all those weekends
I worked Public Service?

He hooked it all up 
And in record time, quickly 
Worked 100 countries, 
All down on 160.

I should have been happy. 
It was my call he sent. 
But the cards and the postage
Will cost a month's rent!

He made final adjustments, 
And left a card by the key:
"To Gary, from Santa Claus.
Seventy-Three."

Then he grabbed his HT,
Looked me straight in the eye,
Punched a code on the pad,
And was gone - no good bye.

I ran back to the station,
And the pile up was big.
But a card from St. Nick 
Would be worth my new rig.

Oh, too late, for his final
Came over the air. 
It was copied all over.
It was heard everywhere.

The Ham's Santa exclaimed
What an old ham expects:
"Merry Christmas to all,
And to all, good DX."