NO-ONE LIKES A SOGGY SANTA

Rain again, and I’ve had to park a hundred miles down the road from where I live.

The windscreen swims. Flashing blue and yellow lights wobble from the porches and the eaves of my neighbours’ houses, celebrating the Christmas yet to come. I’m not ready to move.

Christmas decorations don’t seem right in the rain, do they? Silent snow, cold starlit nights, even a frosty breeze, but not the noisy old, dreary old rain! I think rain belongs in a different season, when things have more permission to be soggy and miserable.

No-one likes a soggy Santa.

That could almost be a children’s book: Father Christmas gets tangled up in a chimney because he forgot to collapse his umbrella. Then, bedraggled and covered in sticky old soot, he gets mistaken for a burglar and arrested for breaking and entering on Christmas Eve. So the two little kids who saw the whole thing (because the rain was keeping them awake) have to work with Rudolph to deliver all the gifts in the rain, including to the prison, where they break Santa out of jail and give him a bright red raincoat as a Christmas present. Forgive me if I missed any clichéd ideas there.

I suppose I’d better make a move, and start the long trek down the road to my flat. I can’t stay here forever, listening to the rain and gazing at the brightly lit houses - I still have a sleep deficit after all. Just got to throw up my hood over my head, grab my bag from the back of my vehicle, and plod on, dreaming of the warm cookies and hot milky drink that doubtless await me at the end of the journey. 

Ho ho ho.