And since I spent my formative years in the country and living on tank water, I have only one response to rain on Christmas Eve:

YES!

I hope it stays, today. I hope it stays tomorrow. I hope it stays for Boxing Day, when a majority of the post-festivity mess is getting cleaned up.

We need a nice, gentle, cooling rain in the very middle of summer. We need it like air. A nice, set-in rain would make this Christmas perfect.

Because otherwise, I would need three showers just to survive the big day. And I won't have time for three showers.

A lovely day of rain would make everything nice and cool not only for myself, but also my guests.

So...

Rain, rain/ Come and stay/You can go another day...

I still have a great deal of prep to do. Freezing cream, thawing the turkey. Locating the prawns, cleanup... BUT, since I did all my writing at double speed, I don't have to fret about my novel. Yay.

Tomorrow - there will not be any Instant Story. There will still be an installment of Peter and Iris Get Married (Eventually) because all I have to do with that mofo is copy and paste a few times.

The rest of my time will be devoted to Christmas, friends, and family.

Happy and safe holidays to you all, and thank you for reading.