So, a question that went through my head the other day is – why do we have the Christmas robin? Not the Christmas pigeon or the Christmas crow?

I mean, they’re everywhere at Christmas time. On Christmas cards or pictures, and we have a few on our Christmas tree as well.

So I decided to try and find out.

Most of the articles I found made a link between the red breast of a robin and the red uniform worn by postmen in the UK in Victorian times. In fact, our Royal Mail postmen still wear red jackets or red shirts today. Red is considered a royal colour and also a colour that is seen on the Union Jack.

Christmas cards were just becoming popular during the Victorian period, and as the postman brought your cards, the association was made with the robin, which led to Robins being depicted on the cards as well.

It also led to the postmen being called robins, although this name isn’t used nowadays.

I also learned that robins like to live in areas where there are big trees and hedgerows. As we started planting hedgerows to mark out the borders of our fields or gardens, robins and people started living closer together – or rather, the robins were encouraged to move closer to the humans. There are more species of birds around in the Summer, but in the Winter, the birds would need to find something to eat. When snow covers the ground, it makes it harder for birds to find food, which sometimes makes them bolder. They’re hungry and they need to find food. So it became more common to see robins on snowy scenes, which may have also contributed to their popularity on Christmas cards.

If you want to give the robins a helping hand in the Winter, they like berries or chopped apples, and mealworms. Especially if the ground is frozen over or there is snow, it’s important to give them access to water as well. Putting water out is good, but you also need to check that it hasn’t frozen over. If you put dried mealworms out, you can also soak them in water to help the birds get moisture in their diet.

Whether or not our affection for the robin has something to do with the Christmas association is unclear, but the robin was voted in 1960 as our national bird.

Have you seen many robins this year?

Advent calendar unboxing

Throughout Blogmas I’ll be unboxing my two advent calendars from Glossybox and the Body Shop and giving a brief product review.

Body Shop – a full size moringa shower gel. We had a shower gel a couple of days ago – I don’t mind another one, but it would have been nice to see some of the fruity products instead of another floral one. There are lovely ranges such as grapefruit, strawberry or raspberry – would have been good to see one of those instead. But never mind, this is a full-size one and I will use it.

Glossybox – this wasn’t something I’ve ever seen before – in fact I didn’t know that this brand did lip products. It’s the Inc.redible jelly lip quencher from Nails Inc. It’s a tinted lip balm in stick form with avocado, vitamin E, and rice bran oil. It doesn’t have a specific taste, but it is gentle and creamy on the lips.

Unseen Beauty Blogmas Giveaway

Today you have another chance to enter my Unseen Beauty Blogmas giveaway. There will be a box with 10 prizes from the Glossybox and Body Shop advent calendars, and the prizes will be revealed throughout December. You can enter once on each Blogmas 2018 page, which means you have up to 24 chances of winning. You can enter at any time from when the page goes live to the end of December 2018.

Multiple entries on the same page will not be counted – I have a spreadsheet to log them!

Your answers to the questions will help me to get to know my readers and where they are based. Also, they prove that you’re a real person as I don’t use inaccessible widgets on my site.

The giveaway is international, but if postal restrictions prevent me from sending a product to your country, I will replace it with an alternative.

The form only goes to me.

What’s in the box?

1. Huda Beauty Winter solstice palate Featuring one pearlescent creamy formula and three icy pressed pearl powders.
2. Spa of the World® French grapeseed body scrub from the Body Shop.
3. Black eye liner pencil from the Body Shop
4. An eye make-up brush from the Body Shop something will be coming later to go with that!
5. Real Techniques expert face brush
6. MUA Cosmic Vixen palette with 15 eye shadows.
7. Karmameju konjac sponge

Products 8-10 coming soon!

Giveaway entry form

Terms and conditions

1. The give-away is open until 23:59 on 31st December 2018, and I’ll draw the winner on 2nd January 2019.
2. I will give each entry a number and then draw the winner by asking Siri to generate a random number. I want to make it as easy and accessible as possible for people to enter.
3. Your email address is being collected solely for the purpose of contacting you if you win the prize. You are welcome to sign up to my newsletter at the same time, but this isn’t necessary to take part in the give-away. If you do not win the prize, your email address will only be stored if you have signed up to the newsletter or asked for your entry to be carried over to the next give-away.
4. I will email the winner on 2nd January to ask for their address so that I can send the prize. The winner will have 7 days in which to respond. If they haven’t responded after 7 days, I will draw a new winner.
5. No cash alternatives are available and the winner is responsible for checking product ingredients for any known allergens)

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