I remember what most Christmas trees looked like when I first started out in Second Life, way, waaay back in 2007. To put it mildly, in the old pre-mesh days, they were not pretty. I loaded up one of my oldest avatars and did some rummaging through his oldest inventory items, to find an example of the sort of thing that we had to put up (and put up with) at Christmastime:
A Second Life Christmas tree, circa 2007: Essentially, two intersecting flat images
The same Christmas tree, as seen from the top (The horror. THE HORROR….)
Well, we have clearly come a long, long way from ye olden tymes! What if I told you, that you could pick up not one, not two, but six beautiful, fully-decorated, fully-mesh Christmas trees to adorn your virtual home?
Simply join the LeLutka group for free, go to the notices, and look for one that says “LeLUTKA Tree Delivery 2020” and click on the Open Attachment button (see red arrows below):
Take the box out of your inventory, open it, and inside you will find six Christmas trees, a free gift from LeLutka, one for each of the years from 2015 to 2020!
The LeLutka Christmas trees from 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018
The trees are resizable to any height you desire, and all come with a pot and, in some cases, a lovely tree skirt.
The LeLutka Christmas trees from 2019 and 2020
So, if you have been searching for the perfect Christmas tree to decorate your abode, why not pick up these freebies, before you spend hundreds, even thousands of Linden dollars, on Christmas trees and ornaments from other places?
O Tannenbaum (traditional German Christmas carol with English subtitles)
I don’t usually do writeups on Advent Calendar gifts in Second Life, because they are only available for 24 hours, and for those people who don’t visit my blog every day, it can be a bit frustrating to see free apparel and footwear that they might have missed picking up the day before.
However, since I am still stuck in self-isolation in my home during the province-wide pandemic lockdown in Manitoba, I might start doing a show-and-tell of some of the bounty that I did pick up that day, just to keep busy. So, here is my haul for December 2nd, 2020.
Virtue is a store run by Abiela Heartsong, who is a Christian woman who specializes in modest but stylish womenswear. Every year, she has an Advent Calendar in her store, with a free gift each day (you do need to join the Virtue group for free to pick up these gifts).
If (like me), you have some time to kill, then in front of the Advent Calendar are two camping chairs, a relative rarity in Second Life these days! You can sit for 60 minutes and win this lovely pastel party dress:
Camping chair at Virtue: My avatar looks so bored…
While my avatar waits, I will show you a couple of the December 2nd Advent Calendar gifts I picked up today. The blue Felicia outfit from Virtue comes in three separate parts: pants, tube top, and sleeves (not shown below), in sizes to fit Maitreya Lara; Belleza Venus, Isis, and Freya; Slink Physique and Hourglass; and Meshbody Legacy. The texturing is lovely, and it’s the perfect outfit for being stuck at home!
The December 2nd Advent Gift from the Essenz women’s footwear store is this lovely pair of Athens high-heeled sandals in black, which include a HUD to change the colour of the sole and the bow. This shoe comes in sizes to fit Maitreya, Belleza, and Slink feet. If you do not wish to spend the L$350 to join the Essenz store group to pick up all the Advent Calendar gifts, you can choose to buy this pair of shoes for only L$50 by clicking on the appropriate panel at the front of the store! (I love it when stores provide that option for non-group members! I believe Entice does that, too.)
Just a reminder that both WOW Skins and 7 Deadly S[k]ins have Advent Calendars with gifts of female Bakes on Mesh skins for your avatar. If you missed your chance to join the 7 Deadly S[k]ins group before December. it now will cost you L$1,000 to join, but for that, you will get 31 days on gifts! The cost to join the WOW Skins group is only L$199, but with that you can not only pick up each day’s Advent Calendar gift, but also all of the monthly group gifts (there is a box with all the previous group gifts on a small table underneath the display of the most recent monthly group gifts).
Happy freebie shopping!
UPDATE 9:15 a.m.: Camping is done! Here’s what the Alexandria Dots party dress looks like:
The shoes in this last picture are the Wales pumps from Essenz. This is a group gift, a complete fatpack, which alone is enough reason to join the Essenz group for L$350, as I explain in a previous blogpost about the Wales pumps:
That means that you get 26 shoe colours times 4 sole colours times 4 metal colours times 4 shoe styles, which works out to 1,664 different shoes! So even if you aren’t already a member of the Essenz group and getting this fatpack of versatile pumps for free, the L$350 group join fee works out to L$0.20 per shoe! Now, if that’s not a deal, I don’t know what is!
The group gift of the Wales fatpack of pumps is located on the front counter of the store, just behind the Advent Calendar (see red arrow below):
So, you listen to your Auntie Ryan, the undisputed Freebie Queen of Second Life 😉 , and you get your pixelated ass down to Essenz, join their store group, and mop up some truly lovely shoes!
I got a tip early this morning that Maitreya was having a Cyber Week 50% Off sale which, of course, includes the perennially popular Maitreya Lara female mesh body:
The sale excludes gift cards, and is only at their mainstore. I popped into their store (SLURL) to check it out.
The Maitreya Lara female mesh body, which usually retails for L$2,750, is on sale until Dec. 6th for only L$1,375. The petite breast add-on, which usually sells for L$599, is only L$299. And the flat-chest add-on (which I believe is comparable to the popular V-Tech add-on) is selling for L$249, half of its regular L$499 price.
This is the first time in this blogger’s memory that Maitreya has ever had a sale. Of course, everybody and their dog designs for Maitreya Lara; they still have an estimated 70% of the female mesh body market, although I’m quite sure that they are seeing strong competition from, among others, the Meshbody Legacy female mesh body, which includes a package of deformers to enable you to wear most Maitreya Lara-designed clothing on it (Nodoka Hanamura recently reviewed the Legacy body here). I have noticed more and more designers are now creating clothing for the Meshbody Legacy body, including a few who used to be Maitreya-exclusive (like Belle Epoque).
And, of course, there have been other, cheaper Maitreya Lara-compatible mesh bodies which I have written about before on this blog, notably the LucyBody Atenea and the Kalhene Anya mesh bodies, which I have found fit most apparel designed for Maitreya Lara. Please note that, as of this writing, the Kalhene Anya Bento, Bakes on Mesh female body (which includes a head) is still on sale for only L$999 (45% off the regular price) at Kalhene’s Black Friday sale (here’s the SLURL to their store):
The Kalhene Black Friday sale was advertised as ending on Nov. 30th, so I don’t know if it has been extended, or for how long, so if you want that L$999 Kalhene Anya body, you’d better hurry down today! As I have written, you get more bang for your buck with the Kalhene Anya body than you would with Maitreya Lara. I have found in my testing that the Kalhene Anya mesh body is 99% compatible with apparel and footwear designed for Maitreya Lara. The only problem area I encountered with the Anya body was the wrist area on certain long-sleeved shirts and tops (see image, right).
Shots fired! The female Bento mesh body wars are starting to get interesting!
