Good morning. Welcome back to Survival Guide. Isabella here.

Christmas is getting closer and closer, and here at the Big Issue we’re getting incredibly festive. Our incredible vendors are out on the street selling our biggest (and quite possibly best) magazines of the year. This week, Gavin and Stacey is on the cover with an exclusive interview with Ruth Jones and James Corden all about the Christmas special. 

Please show our vendors your support if you can – even if it is just a chat and a smile, if you can’t afford a magazine. For people on a low-income or experiencing homelessness, Christmas can be an incredibly tough time of year. But it’s also a time of hope and kindness.

In this newsletter we meet Natalia, a mum of two from Ukraine, who has been supported by her local baby bank who provided her with the essentials – and they will be supplying families like Natalia’s with a little festive cheer over Christmas too.

This season can also be a reminder of just how much has changed in our lives. Last year, Sebastian spent Christmas in prison, and this year his life has turned around and he is a chef in a fine dining restaurant, filled with hope for his future. 

Although Christmas can be difficult, there are many people working to make it brighter. If you are worried about affording Christmas dinner, or you don’t want to spend it alone, there are plenty of places offering free Christmas dinners this year. We’ve got a list of as many we could find across the country, linked at the end of this newsletter.

If you have a story to share, we want to listen. Get in touch at isabella.mcrae@bigissue.com or share your story here.

Ukrainian mum who fled war dreams of buying Christmas tree and presents for her children

Natalia fled Ukraine with her 10-year-old son soon after war broke out. They came to the UK and had no friends or family here, and very few possessions. They left behind their family home with its small garden, their dog and cat. Natalia’s husband had volunteered to fight in the war and she missed him desperately.

Last Christmas, all Natalia’s son wanted was a cat – but their emergency accommodation does not allow pets – and for his father to come to London to be with him. And it happened. Just before Christmas, her husband came to live with them, seeking safety after experiencing horrors as a soldier.

This winter comes with different worries. It’s cold, and they need to pay their bills and buy clothes for their children. They have a new baby, who was born in September this year. The family has been helped by charity Little Village, which runs a network of baby banks in London, to get the basic essentials.

Natalia hopes to be able to buy a Christmas tree this year, to relive happy memories of hiding gifts under the tree in Ukraine. She has an older daughter too, who is now an adult and living in Poland.

“I would like to buy the Christmas tree, because in Ukraine, the whole time we had a Christmas tree, and we’d hide some gifts for children under the Christmas tree.”

Read Natalia’s story and about the kindness offered to her by baby banks.

In case you missed it

'It's unimaginable': More than 350,000 people homeless in England this Christmas. Around 161,500 children, will be homeless across England this Christmas, according to new estimates from housing charity Shelter, as homelessness has surged in 2024. Read more.

Calls to give Syrian asylum seekers right to work while UK suspends refugee applications. The UK government has suspended decisions on asylum claims from Syrians after the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad. Get the story.

'Poverty takes years off your life': Men in Blackpool now have lowest life expectancy in Britain. Blackpool now has the lowest male life expectancy in Britain – the first time since records began in 2001 that Glasgow has not come bottom of the rankings. Find out more.

The Tories wasted £131bn of taxpayer cash in five years. Here's how it could've helped fix Britain. The Conservative government wasted money on Test and Trace, Covid PPE contracts, and post-Brexit border checks. We've put it to better use. Read about it.

More than 50,000 UK workers homeless this Christmas: 'No guarantee that work means a home'. Someone with a job becomes homeless the equivalent of every 10 minutes, according to analysis from The Salvation Army. Get the story.

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Last Christmas I was in prison. This year I'm working in a London fine-dining restaurant

For Sebastian, Christmas Day 2023 was not what most people think of when they think of Christmas. He took some food from the prison canteen back to his cell. The meal in the canteen wasn’t where the action was. 

Sebastian made fritters with the chicken, cooked in his kettle. Others made rice, dumplings and fried chicken. “It wasn’t all that,” he says of his year inside, but adds: “Christmas Day was actually all right, not too bad. Everyone in the cells was making food.” 

This year, Sebastian will be plating up meals in a very different environment: Home Kitchen, a restaurant run by two-Michelin-starred chef Adam Simmonds, where diners in London’s well-heeled Regent’s Park will come for a festive treat.

Read Sebastian’s story.

This Christmas, you can make a lasting change to a vendor's life. Buy a magazine from your local vendor in the street every week, if you can’t reach them, buy a Big Issue Vendor Support Kit.