Virtual Visits

I grew up before mass media existed (except for Gutenberg's printing press). Later, when I gained the title of Santa Claus, correspondence was still done with quill and ink on paper and delivered by post. However, I have always enjoyed technology throughout my life. I read: Mary Shelly's Frankenstein (1818), Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon (1865), and H.G. Wells' The Time Machine (1895), all when they were first published. I also attended the premiers of: Georges Méliès's silent film Le Voyage Dans la Lune (1902), Karel Čapek's play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (1921), and Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977). My first computer was a Remington-Rand 1101, designed by E.R.A., and built by the tech elves, Steve Wozniak gave me an Apple I as a gift in 1976, and my first portable computer was a TRS-80 Model 100, which my wife, Daisy, purchased in 1985. With the aid of the software engineering elf, Dator, I can bring the joy of Yuletide visits to families via video calling. I can now visit children, virtually, anywhere on the globe and share Yuletide cheer with them.