Story highlights Netflix Instant outage hit users on Christmas Eve

The outage, due to Amazon servers going down, lasted about 20 hours

Users took to Twitter to voice despair, express humor

Aah, Christmas Eve. A time for family and friends, eggnog and mistletoe, carols and cookies ... and catching up on "Downton Abbey"?

Apparently, that's what legions of us had in mind when -- humbug! -- the Netflix Instant streaming service went down . The outage, caused when some Amazon servers used by Netflix crashed, lasted more than 20 hours.

Like many companies, Netflix pays to rent space on Amazon's massive banks of servers. The outage, which affected devices such as tablets and smartphones, began at about 3:30 p.m. ET Monday.

Many Netflix users had to scratch those plans to gather around the laptop for "It's a Wonderful Life," "A Christmas Story" or "Santa's Slay" (the 2005 classic starring former wrestler Bill Goldberg as a deranged Santa demon). Although for the desperate, " Shrek the Halls " was available on ABC.

Netflix said service was restored Christmas morning. "Special thanks to our awesome members for being patient. We're back to normal streaming levels. We hope everyone has a great holiday,' said the company on Twitter

Still, the Internet was not amused -- which didn't stop some social-media users from trying to be amusing.

Here are some of our favorite Twitter posts from the long winter night of our discontent:

"So @netflix is down? Great. Now everybody has to talk to their annoying family."

Razzle Dangerously ‏(@MyNameisRazzle2)

"Netflix is down, most likely overloaded... Which means I'm not the only one bored as hell at his parents house.."

Jess Dweck ‏(@TheDweck)

"So depressed about Netflix being down that all I wanna do is lie on the couch and watch Netflix."

Aaron Zamost (‏@zamosta)

"Amazon Web Services crashes on Christmas Eve, taking out Netflix but not Amazon Video. Somewhere, (Amazon CEO) Jeff Bezos reads "The Grinch" to his kids."

'"Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a @netflix was streaming, not even Mickey Mouse."

Jane McGonigal (‏@avantgame)

"Netflix streaming, please come back online, I need to stream my Fireplace in the Home/Yule Log on my TV while we make gingerbread xoxo"

Sophia Van Elsberg ‏(@sophiavanelsber)

"Netflix being broken is forcing me to get up and do something with my life #notcool"

Sassy in Slumberland ‏(@SassyinSlumberl)

"Netflix is down. Bc bad things happen to good people."

Joel Braverman (‏@joelbrave)

"Thanks to @netflix outage we can likely expect a moderate population explosion in nine months."

Lauren McLaughlin ‏(@lauren_mclaugh)

"How the Grinch Stole Netflix..."

"Some kid probably asked Santa for #Netflix to be down so his parents would pay attention to him. Leave me out of your problems, kid."