The Holiday Traffic Missions are live tonight, but completely underwhelming. A peek at the two top items tells you all you need to know: a Vehicle with 62 Defense...

...and an Animal with 63 Attack.

Those are decent numbers, but those are the TOP Mission rewards. Wait until you see what the rest of the loot looks like. But first - my prayers from last night were answered: we indeed have THREE separate challenges cluttering up our screens, running at once:

I suspect Mafia Wars is trying to keep us busy (and this FEELS like busy work) until they roll out Italy Region 6, Region 7, and Region 8.



Another thing that would keep us busy is if they just released the new Italy Regions now.



The Holiday Traffic Missions come about from doing jobs. You invite friends the same way as you do in regular Missions (which are - thankfully - still available).






Here's a list of the possible rewards for completing a Holiday Traffic Mission. If you recognize some of them, it's because you were excited when you found them as drop Loot in Moscow and Bangkok in 2009.






The posted rules make the Holiday Traffic Missions sound much more rewarding than they are:






Nevertheless, I asked my unwary Mafia to join me in one. An hour later, no one has signed up. Maybe that's because there are like 300 other requests for people to join Holiday Traffic Missions on my Facebook feed. Nothing like scarcity to drum up excitement.






I joined a Holiday Traffic Mission to see if I could land a top item like the Roaring 20s or Hippopotamus.






I did not land either item:






None of these items make my top 501 on Attack or Defense. The Type-103 Machine Gun, if I recall, is mid-level Moscow Loot. Nice reward! Likely the last Holiday Traffic Mission I'll participate in. These are essentially Medium Level Missions offering largely recycled loot.



You can celebrate obtaining items with stats in the 40s with the Celebrate button, though only three of your Mafia members will be lucky enough to share in this goldmine.