Justine Thomas is 48, from Norwich, and tells us: ‘It’s the first time I’ve bought a card that says ‘to my husband’ but it’s the first time I won’t be sending a card to my beloved dad.’
Justine’s father passed away in March of this year, aged 89 years old, and had three daughters and three sons.
Coping with loss at this time can be difficult, and happy memories can help family members deal with such a big loss.
Justine says: ‘This year, I’m trying to focus on the really good memories we have while looking forward.’
Moving on, Justine says: ‘I know this Christmas will be different, so I’ll spend the day looking back – but just enough. I also keep reminding myself there’s a big future out there.’
Alice Cracknell, 33, runs a non-profit clothing brand and lives in Devon with her husband Tom. The pair are actually expecting and their due date is today, on Christmas.
This comes after the couple experienced a miscarriage in September of last year, at 12 weeks. Alice went through shock, having experienced all of the pregnancy symptoms.
Alice had a special mention for the NHS staff who helped her through the grieving process and felt blessed to have a supportive family around her.
It wasn’t until 6 months into her next pregnancy, that Alice started buying things for her new arrival, Alice was scared she would jinx it.
As the big day arrives, Alice is still really excited for the new addition to the family.
‘So whether our baby arrives late or early, it really will be the perfect Christmas present!’
In London, Chinelo Awa will be spending Christmas without her mum, after she passed away three years ago on Christmas Eve.
But to honour her mum, she’s spending her Christmas volunteering to feed the homeless.
It’s been a Christmas tradition in the family, to donate food to the vulnerable.
Chinelo said: ‘On Christmas Eve, we’d season all the meat, then the next day we’d fry it, prepare the rice and create the bags. We’d spend our mornings doing that, ensuring we ate too, so we wouldn’t get hungry on the road.’
Chinelo’s mum was everything to her and hopes to create a new tradition in her memory.
To read these stories in full, click the link below 👇
Using topography data, researchers have found clear evidence of a 3.5 billion-year-old shoreline around 900 meters thick, which covered thousands of square kilometers 📏
The findings point to a ‘higher potential’ for life on Mars than previously thought 📈👽
Jessikah Inaba, 23, qualified last week after studying for five years at the University of Law in London.
She managed to complete her studies after translating all her learning materials into braille with the help of her friends and tutors to fill in the gaps.
Jess, from Camden, has now joined the Bar 5 years since starting her studies in 2017. She said:
🗣 'It’s been crazy, I still can’t really believe I’ve done it.'
🗣️'Brixton has turned into a commuter space – it used to feel like a community but it no longer feels like it’s designed for families.'
Brixton has long been known for its large Afro-Caribbean population, which developed after much of the Windrush generation settled there from the late 1940s onwards 🗺
BREAKING: A man has attacked a migrant centre with petrol bombs before killing himself. trib.al/MLrBc1k
According to witnesses, the man threw petrol bombs with fireworks attached at a new British immigration border force centre in the southern English port of Dover and then killed himself.
Police arrived minutes afterwards and cordoned off the area. Fire crews were also in attendance.
Football clubs need to be ‘shining a light’ on their black pioneering players, with more research done to ensure players’ stories aren’t lost forever 💡⚽️
Arthur Wharton, the first black professional footballer, and Luther Blissett, the first black player to score a hat-trick for England, are some of the ex-players that have been widely celebrated in recent weeks 👏
Clubs have found new ways of highlighting the cultural contributions made by their sporting icons 🏆
On October 7, Plymouth Argyle erected a statue of pioneering black footballer Jack Leslie.