Inside the Big Issue: Our Christmas Kids Cover Competition winner

You know it’s Christmas when the winner of the Big Issue Christmas Kids Cover Competition is revealed. And this year’s is a cracker!

Take a look at the very jolly Santa and joyous Christmas tree. Seeing it is an instant way to fill yourself with the spirit of the season.

The artist behind this festive fantasy is six-year-old Arnold Sam from Epsom, Surrey.

Arnold said: “When I heard this exciting news, I felt so happy and really proud that my drawing will be on the cover of The Big Issue. The magazine helps people.”

This year’s entries to the Christmas Kids Cover Competition were arguably the best ever. Hundreds and hundreds of fantastic festive entries flooded in, riffing on this year’s theme: WELCOME, making it almost impossible to pick a winner.

There were dozens of entries from schools and youth groups across the country. Some classes had clearly been learning about The Big Issue and how people impacted by poverty have an especially hard time at winter. There were also plasticine dinosaurs, a gingerbread man sheriff, a sentient Christmas dinner and a couple of Big Issue magazines carrying a tree home.

And this year’s competition truly went global. We had entries from Australia, India, Vietnam and Iran, as well as across Europe.

We’re all ready for the Christmas season to kick up a gear and there’s no better way than buying this week’s magazine from your local vendor.

There’s also a special message from six-year-old Arnold for all our readers:

“I want to wish everyone a super happy Christmas and I hope Santa can bring Christmas gifts and joy to every nice kid in the world.”

To read the full interview, buy a copy of this week’s magazine. Find your local vendor here.

What else is in this week’s Big Issue?

How the death of a man in an overcrowded flat highlighted our dire housing crisis

East London’s council housing was supposed to mark the end of slum landlords. Instead, it has been allowed to become the making of them. Petter Apps, the author of Orwell Prize-winning Show Me the Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Happen, digs into a tragic Shadwell flat fire that killed a father of two.

Cost of living Christmas dinner tips from Tom Kerridge and Marcus Rashford

Christmas dinner should leave your family full and give you plenty of leftovers for a lazy Boxing Day. But to do all of that on a budget in a cost of living crisis? It’s tricky, but we want to help you do just that. Here’s our £20 Christmas Dinner shopping list.

How The Big Issue became a royal matchmaker

In episode seven of the final series of The Crown, a flashback scene shows the teenage Prince William selling The Big Issue on the streets of London with Princess Diana. A young Kate Middleton, out shopping with her mother, buys a copy from him and their eyes meet. There’s a spark between them. An attraction, though William, an awkward adolescent at the time, looks a little flustered. Read more about our role as a royal matchmaker in this week’s issue.