When my partner told me she was going out to get presents for family and more clothes for herself, I spread open my legs and let her see the gaping hole in my favourite pair of denim shorts, and then pretended to whimper about the inevitable loss of my best friend (I had been wearing them every day since September). So she obliged.

I would do it myself, but I must confess, I’m a Christmas grinch. These holidays are always very hard for me, and I like to deal with it by wearing my grumpy face and hoping that Kate will cover all the festivities’ essentials, like buying food and presents and gift wrapping. After four years working with homeless and mentally ill in Melbourne’s inner city, I always found this time to be particularly rough on the lonely. My thoughts tend to go their way and stay with them. So my family is normally left with diatribes about the abuse of Santa Claus consumerism, whinges and moans about how much money we’ll have to spend on useless plastic toys that will break by the end of Christmas day, and worries about what we are actually teaching our kids.

Noble from my point of view, but I can understand why some members of the house want me .

She came back with two potential new homies. One made me look like a fat primary school kid. I decided to return it tonight, as the shops were still open and we needed the cash for the next few days.

As soon as I walked out the door the rain came. Determined and constant. Pounding and rattling as an infantry returns from battle. The sky was covered in cloud, and water was running down from every rooftop, filling the air as traffic tyres threw it back up from the road.

Reporters say that this wet will remain until Christmas Day. The best wish granted this season. It’s not enough to break the drought. But it’s enough to lift our spirits, for a time.

Tomorrow the family is driving to Mildura, which in any given year has more days of sunshine than the Gold Coast, but this time will be grey, wet, and even a little cool. But in this outback Victorian town my sister, who has returned from three years in the Northern hemisphere, will be meeting my son. I can’t wait to see the look on her face.

Wherever you are, I wish you the best of your season’s colours, whether they be white, blue, grey, yellow or green. But for all of you I wish that your spirits are lifted, that they evaporate and transpire and fill the air, and rain down on you and those you love.

Merry Christmas, from a grinch whose grumps have been washed away for a while.