I’ve just checked the Santa Tracker on Google, and Santa’s somewhere in the Middle East.

Let’s hope he gives them what they really need in 2017, the present of peace, the gift of the developed world not treating it like their personal war zone, the gift of not having their innocents massacred and maimed over someone else’s agenda, the present of a lasting future. Just look at the names on the map…Tehran, Baghdad, Ramadi, Mosul, Damascus, Aleppo…. What they all really need is the gift of peace.

It has been a strange year at SLN, but it rather looks like we’re back on track to continue to deliver the best naturist news in both the real world and Second Life.

I will, of course, be online between now and the New Year, but probably not around much again this evening. The music’s on, the presents are under the tree, and excited little people have laid out milk, cookies and reindeer food before climbing the stairs. Tomorrow is a time for family, if you’re lucky enough to have them close, and not so far away if you make sure to ring them and say hello.

The grid’s slowing down, bloggers have said their seasonal greetings and will disappear for the holiday period.

More exciting changes on the way for SLN in 2017, but we’ll roll them out at the appropriate moment.

Merry Christmas to all our readers.

Lots of love from

Ella and the SLN crew.

I’ve been thinking about gifts.

Men like to buy women lingerie, quite a bit. Usually the wrong size, style and colour, but it’s the thought that counts, lol.

Women, on the other hand, like to buy men ‘boys’ toys’, radios, bits for cars or computers and a lot of camera gear.

So it appears we often end up putting these two items together on Christmas morning…

Yes. Naturist or not, it appears we do like to take a lot of photos in various degrees of undress, while dressing the tree, while wrapping or unwrapping presents, while cooking lunch in the nude, or showing off new lingerie.

There have been plenty of gifts around the SL grid this year, and plenty of opportunities for you to do your own naked Christmas photos.

I can only see this positively (assuming the size, colour and style are all OK). A ready acceptance of our own naked bodies is growing by the day. Tomorrow morning, there will be millions more photos taken in a similar style as people readily embrace their nudity. The next step, surely a smaller one than posing for ‘Santa’ and his new camera in new lingerie, is to encourage people to further embrace their naked confidence in a public arena as a generation of new naturists?

Ella

There’s a number of mistletoe poses set out at SLN HQ.

William and Fi, underneath a tree…K I S S I N G

George and Gabrielle get cuddly

Tender kisses at sunset on Christmas Eve

If you encounter some mistletoe this evening, use it. It’s a time of peace, harmony and yes indeed, love.

Ella

A quick round up of freebies available to (un)dress your avatar before the big day.

The beanie hat, sign and holding pose are available from Shi.s Poses for L$0, but you will need your SLF&O group tag (also free) to get it. Diane then posed at the Winter Flakes sim. A word about Diane, who previously undertook photography for us. She’ll be back, photographing and writing, full time, for us in the New Year.

It’s beginning to not look a lot like Christmas

Australian avatar Charlene, pictured at the Cape San Blas sim, is wearing a bikini from her inventory. There’s nothing to buy in relation to this photograph, but I want to make a point regarding the photo. Charlene spent Christmas Days in the past on the beach, eating a turkey dinner, in a bikini, at the height of the Australian summer.

The BBC is reporting that the Arctic is 20 degrees warmer than usual, and that the UK may face the warmest Christmas Day for a century tomorrow.

Double digit temperatures on Christmas Day?

Unless we tackle the growing issue of climate change, with some urgency, the chances are that we’re all going to potentially spend Christmas Day on the beach. While I often bemoan the brevity of the naturist season in the UK, it’s not a good thing. With climate change comes ever fiercer storms, typhoons, harder rain, more frequent hurricanes and rising sea temperatures. I don’t particularly want to spend Christmas afloat, in a bikini. Winter should mean winter, not mild temperatures. We need to tackle climate change more robustly, more quickly, and we need to start today.

Storm Barbara has just passed through the UK, we had a lot of rain and high winds, and Storm Conor will be with us in a few days. While winter storms were to be expected long before we identified climate change, weather patterns have certainly changed in recent decades, so it’s time for us all to do our bit in terms of slowing that. Think global, act local, and we get somewhere with it. We can’t rely on short-sighted politicians to do this work for us.

Finally, I was pleased to find a nativity scene at Depoz Christmas shop (priced L$295)

As I’ve said before, I’m not overly religious, but I do feel that the birth of Christ should remain central to the Christmas message. He seems to have become almost peripheral to the new god of shopping, of consumerism, of possessions. Granted, a few recent posts have concentrated on whatever Christmas possessions we’ve been able to find around the grid, just to ‘theme’ the posts, but in the main -as always- our focus is on less possessions and a simpler life…naturism, wherein there’s no need for stupid, overly priced bikinis, where we as naturists simply enjoy the amazing world around us, enjoying the sun, enjoying swimming, eating simply and healthily, open to all, judgmental of none, all messages from which the world, naturist or textile, would do to take on board.

Wherever you are, Merry Christmas.

There may well be more posts today, depending on my real life schedule. That will almost certainly mean avoiding the shops, closing the door, turning up the Carols from Kings radio programme broadcast by the BBC every Christmas Eve, and doing some preparation in the kitchen. Tonight, when excited little faces have gone to bed, I’ll be opening some wine, lighting a few candles, and getting more Christmas music on in our lounge. And yes, perhaps even logging into SL, but that’s uncertain at this point in my day.

(north American readers please note: follow the link about Carols from Kings to learn how you too can tune in via American Public Media and its affiliates)

Ella