Once More With Footnotes by Terry Pratchett

duplicated 50,000 times, and almost none of them listed product numbers and prices to six decimal places. He was more used to pink paper with rabbits on it. But you're not a major seasonal spirit for hundreds of years wi thout being able to leap a large conclusion from a standing start.
     
                  "Let me see if I understand this," he said. "You're Tom?"
     
                  T.O.M. Yes. Trade & Office Machines.
     
                  "You didn't say you were a computer," said Father Christmas. Sorry. I didn't know it was important.
     
                  Father Christmas sat down on a chair, and gave a start when it swivelled underneath him. It was three in the morning. He still had forty million houses to do.
     
                  "Look," he said, as kindly as he could manage, "computers can't go around believi ng in me. That's just for children. Small humans, you know. With arms and legs."
     
                  And do they?
     
                  "Do they what?"
     
                  Believe in you.
     
                  Father Christmas sighed.
     
                  "Of course not," he said. "I blame the electric light, myself."
     
                  I do.
     
                  "Sorry?"
     
                  I believe in you. I believe everything I am told. I have to. It is my job. If you start believing two and two don't make four, a man comes along and takes your back off and wobbles your boards. Take it from me, it's not something you want to happen twice.
     
                  "That's terrible!" said Father Christmas.
     
                  I just have to sit here all day and work out wages. Do you know, they had a Christmas party here today, and they didn't invite me. I didn't even get a balloon. I certainly didn't get a kiss.
     
                  "Fancy."
     
                  Someone spilled some peanuts on my keyboard. That was something, I suppose. And then they went home and left me here, working over Christmas.
     
                  "Yes, it always seemed unfair to me, too. But look, computers can't have feelings," said Father Christmas. "That's just silly."
     
                  Like one fat man climbing down millions of chimneys in one night?
     
                  Father Christmas looked a bit guilty. "You've got a point there," he said. He looked at the list again. "But I can't give you all this stuff," he added. "I don't even know what a terabyt e is."
     
                  What do most of your customers ask for, then?
     
                  Father Christmas looked sadly at his sack. "Computers," he said. "Mobile phones. Robot animals. Plastic wizards. And other sorts of robotty things that look like American footballers who've been punc hed through a Volkswagen. Things that go beep and need batteries," he added sourly. "Not the kind of things I used to bring. It used to be dolls and train sets." Train sets?
     
                  "Don't you know? I thought computers were supposed to know everything."
     
                  Only a bout wages.
     
                  Father Christmas rummaged around in his sack. "I always carry one or two," he said. "Just in case."
     
    -
     
                  It was now four in the morning. Rails wound around the office. Fifteen engines were speeding around under the desks. Father Christmas was on his knees, building a house of wooden bricks. He hadn't had this much fun since 1894.
     
                  Toys were all around the computer's casing. It was all the stuff which Christmas cards show in the top of Father Christmas's sack, and which is never asked for. Non e of them used batteries. Mostly they ran on imagination.
     
                  "And you're sure you don't want any zappo whizzo