Our tortoises might have settled down for their Nice Long Winter Naps, but here are five Christmassy purchases to help us celebrate our love of tortoises and our own Chelonian pals this Christmas.
1) Tortoise Fairy Lights
This string of Uonlytech 40 LED tortoise fairy lights will look great on your Christmas tree. They have six different light settings, so you can wow your family with a tortoise light display this Christmas. I bought mine in October and they are now draped over one of my bookcases, which means that I get to keep them up all year round! You can purchase your own set here.
2) Personalised Tortoise Christmas Decoration
If you want to make your Christmas tree even more tort-tastic, then I would highly recommend this personalised tortoise plywood Christmas decoration from The Crafty Giraffe. Toby loves his! The great news is that they produce personalised Christmas decorations for a wide range of pets, as well as aquatic, farm, woodland and zoo animals. They have an impressive range of reptile ornaments, including snakes, geckos, turtles, bearded dragons and skinks. They also have some lovely tortoise Christmas cards.
3) Aldi Christmas Pudding Tortoise
I'm sure many of you are familiar with Kevin the Carrot, the star of Aldi's Christmas adverts (narrated by the lovely Jim Broadbent) since 2016. This year, Kevin shares the silver screen some festive friends - a mince pie mouse and a Christmas pudding tortoise - and the great news is that Aldi have brought out some plush toys of all three characters. You can buy them individually in Aldi stores or in a set from Aldi online. My Christmas pudding tortoise is called Bernard and he has taken over Toby's twitter account for him whilst my little prince enjoys a well-deserved rest!
4) Galapagos Conservation Trust Christmas Jumper
The Galapagos Conservation Trust have a wonderful festive clothing collection, including this lovely Galapagos tortoise women's Christmas jumper, which comes in four different colours and in sizes 8 to 18. There are also children's and men's versions of this jumper as well as Galapagos Saddleback tortoise Christmas jumpers and Christmas Iguana jumpers and t-shirts. You can find out more about the Galapagos Conservation Trust here and their work on giant tortoise movement ecology here. You can also become a member of the Galapagos Conservation Trust or adopt a Galapagos animal.
5) Jellycat Hibernating Tortoise
Not strictly a Christmas tortoise, but this little Jellycat hibernating tortoise is certainly on-brand for the festive season. Mine arrived on the very day that Toby began his hibernation. They are currently out of stock on the Jellycat website (and on many other stockists' websites), but I purchased mine online from Word in London and it arrived by courier within a few days.
I wish tortoises and tortoise lovers everywhere a Very Merry Christmas and a Nice Long Winter Nap to every tort who is taking one!