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