Originally posted on the isogeochem listserv
https://list.uvm.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=ISOGEOCHEM

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Twas the Night Before [Isotope] Christmas

      by Marilyn Fogel

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the lab
Not a creature was stirring, not even a crab.
The stockings were hung by the mass specs with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The students were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of Science papers danced in their heads.
And me in my lab coat, and liquid nitrogen in the trap,
I’d just settled down for a long winter’s nap.

When in the fume hood there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter.
Away down the hall I flew like a flash,
Tore open the doors and threw up the sash.

The sound in the hood of turbulent flow
Gave the bluster of work day to sample vials below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and 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 turbos his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

"Now Vacuum! now, Answer! now, Advancer and Gauge!
On, Neutron! On, Electron! on Conflo and Microscope Stage!
To the top of the Cube! to the software Install!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild EA do fly,
When they meet with oxygen, combust to the sky.
So up to the flight tube the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Reagents, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the spec
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
To the ion source St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his coats,
And his clothes were reacted with ashes and boats.
A bundle of samples he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a biogeochemist, just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like hoses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a gas reserve,
And the beard of his chin fancied an isotope curve.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in a spring,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a centering-ring.
He had a broad face like a round little bellow,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jello!

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 jobs,
And filled all the stockings, with detectors and knobs.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the fume hood he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Isotopes to all, and to all a good-night!"