It’s that time of year!

Once again we are approaching the holiday season. Christmas Eve also couple as my annual rezzday. I understand how people must feel who are born on or around Christmas or other major holidays. As a consequence of my unfortunate rezzing, I’ve never really celebrated my rezzday, though this year will mark the big number four. But I digress….

As virtual tradition has it, we can all look forward to a month of SL inventory drops of holiday greetings from people we barely know, friends who should know better and business associates in world. I’ve always found it funny when I unearth holiday cards and gifts, sometimes I scratch my head in disbelief because I have no idea who sent them or barely remember them. My friends that know me, know better than to send me holiday greetings in Second Life. Thats why they are my friends =)

I do not want to come across as Cranky McScroogepants, but for the love of all that is holy please please please do not clog my Second Life inventory with Holiday cards and greetings that I will not find until next August. Honestly, I probably haven’t even looked at last years ones yet… So, if you wish to send me a holiday greeting you can do it here or ignore me and be THAT person.

Here are three useful tips for the holidays:

Useful tip #1: Don’t send “holiday” cards or gifts to your entire friends list. Select those that you want to include carefully. Its hard to tell from avatar names who you might inadvertently be offending by sending Christmas cards. For instance, I’m atheist, while I loosely celebrate Christmas for family reasons, I am a stickler for the most non-denominational generic holiday cards.

Useful tip #2: Clogging peoples inventories with crap is rude, but we all do it. Since my absence from SL, I am loathe to think what my inventory must look like from all the random event invites, check out <fill in blank>, rent from my mall etc. Now add to the holidays in the equation. Which brings me to the useful tip in all this… If you have not seen someone online for say a month or longer, its probably best to avoid a random inventory drop. I know its harder to tell when people are online since the privacy controls were launched awhile back. But think about it, you *would* know if they wanted to be seen online.

Useful tip #3: Personally deliver your holiday cards and gifts to friends while they are online. Its much more personal. I’ve done this on the one occasion that I made a holiday card. Ok there were two occasions, but the first holiday card I made in 2004 was for Taco Rubio. I never sent it to anyone else.

And on that note, Happy Holidays and Seasons Greetings folks!