Juvenile Arthritis Research’s Christmas Gift Guide for gifts that won’t cost the earth

If you are thinking that you’ve left things a little late for Christmas shopping, fear not. We are here with some ideas that can save the day! Including some low or no cost activities, gifts that give back and some eco-friendly gift ideas so that you can treat your friends and family without it costing the earth.

Why not re-use an empty jar to bake some lovely homemade biscuits to give as a truly personal gift made with love!

Here are some brilliant recipes from Biscuiteers as a starting point depending on whether you want to make vanilla biscuits, chocolate biscuits or classic Christmassy gingerbread.

Or if you’d rather give some savoury biscuits which are perfect to have with cheese at Christmas, then Masterchef 2019 Winner Irini Tzortzoglou’s recipe for multi-seed biscuits is a great one (the alcohol in them cooks off and you can use plain flour in place of carob flour).

You can print off this printable page and cut out to include with your jar of biscuits. That way the recipient gets to find out about juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) at the same time.

We send out our Little Box of Hope support packs free of charge to children with JIA. We have our Original little box of Hope support packs featuring our mascot Kipo the monkey for children aged under 10. And for 10-16 year olds, we have A little box of hope: Teen pack which features a book called Peg-Leg written by a young person with JIA as well as lots of other information and support resources to help them on their JIA journey.

To sponsor a Little Box of Hope for a child with JIA, simply click on this link and you can donate £10 which provides one of these much needed support packs to a child with JIA.

You can then click here to print this gift certificate to give to someone to show that you have bought a gift supporting Juvenile Arthritis Research charity in honour of them as their Christmas gift.

(If you know someone who has JIA and needs to receive a little box of hope support pack, please ask them to go to www.jarproject.org/hope and fill in the form to request one)

Did you know that we have had a bespoke song written for us by Narrow Skies music. It’s called Hold On and can be bought as a digital track from here for a minimum donation of just $1 (but if you can afford to give more, then it’s truly appreciated as every penny goes towards our vital work in supporting children with juvenile arthritis).

It’s a poignant and thought-provoking song ultimately filled with hope for the future and would make a lovely Christmas gift for someone.

You can download a certificate here to print or email to the recipient to go along with it too if you would like to.

Our books Kipo and Peg-Leg

In case you hadn’t guessed, we LOVE books here at Juvenile Arthritis Research. We have our Kipo book for younger children about Kipo, a loveable monkey who has JIA. And for older children , we have Peg-Leg, a book written in the style of Wimpy-Kid by a young person with JIA. We include a physical copy of these in our A Little Box of Hope Support packs for children with JIA but did you know that ANYONE can download a digital copy to read completely free of charge!

You can download Kipo here, and Peg-Leg here.

If you know of a school who would like a copy of either the Kipo book or Peg-Leg for their classroom or school library, please ask them to get in touch with us via www.jarproject.org/schools

Not only are both of these books brilliant for children and young people with JIA with a story they can relate to and know that they are not alone, but they are also fantastic for others who don’t have JIA to learn about the condition to better understand and support someone with JIA.

If you enjoy the hobby of entering competitions, then these are the books for you! The full proceeds from both of these books (once Amazon take their costs) go to Juvenile Arthritis Research to support the work that we do. They have been written by an adult who has had JIA since a young age and she wanted to support our work by donating all of the proceeds to us for which we are really grateful.

Overcoming the Odds can be ordered here.

The Happy Comper Journal can be ordered here.

This book has been written by first time author, Liz Sabin and is a fictional novella but draws on her own real life experiences of having JIA. Whilst sales/proceeds from this book are not related to us, it is a book that helps raise awareness of JIA and so it definitely deserves a mention in our gift guide!

And remember - if you shop using easyfundraising or Amazon Smile when buying it, then we'll receive a donation at no cost to you (more information here).

We know it takes a lot of hard work to publish a book, especially as a first time author without a professional team behind you, and it takes a lot of guts when the story draws on some difficult and emotional experiences of your own. So well done Liz! You can read more about Liz here and her book is available on Amazon here and is perfect as a stocking filler gift idea.

You could make one of these to give to a sibling who has JIA to help support them through the tricky times when anxiety might reach a peak like at injection time. The idea behind these is that they can be helpful for calming the mind. When you shake the jar, the glitter whirls around like all the thoughts and worries in your mind, but as the glitter slows and settles, you can watch it to help your mind calm too. As your mind focusses on the glitter in a jar, it has a calming effect as our focus shifts to our senses rather than the thoughts whirling in our own minds. You can find instructions on how to create your own here. (remember to find environmentally friendly glitter to use if you can).

And last but certainly not least, is the amazing range of clothing and stickers we have available in our JAR shop. All of the clothing is made from organic cotton and produced to high ethical standards!

Clothing

The clothing range includes t-shirts, sweatshirts, and hoodies in adult sizes and children sizes and in a wide range of colours and styles.

There are some items of clothing that have been designed by children and young people with JIA themselves, some that relate specifically to JIA and chronic conditions and some that are suitable for anyone at all!

And if you want to create your own clothing design, you can do so using the design studio function where you can find an even wider range of clothing and items to customise like shorts, joggers, vests and tote bags. There truly is something for everyone.

We also have a range of Christmas jumpers and stickers. Our jumpers have been proving extremely popular, receiving some great reviews and even making it into Prima Magazine's top charity Christmas gifts.

But please keep an eye on the last posting dates for Christmas to avoid disappointment. Our clothing supplier does their best in getting orders out promptly but we can’t guarantee that products will be received in time for Christmas due to possible postal delays at the moment.

Stickers

The stickers in the JAR shop are all produced to the same high ethical values that have been in place for the clothing. Using renewable energy to print them, printed on demand to avoid wastage, and using water-based inks which are similar to the GOTS-certified organic inks used on the clothing range. They’re plastic-free and the backing paper is made from a special type of paper too. On ordinary stickers, the sticky bit often uses acrylics and plastics, but stickers from the JAR shop use a water-based rubber alternative which has impressive sticking power.

Stickers are individually priced and you can even create your own custom design that would make a lovely addition in someone’s stocking this Christmas.

Wherever you shop, if you are shopping online please consider using easyfundraising.

This is the UK’s biggest charity shopping fundraising site. It's simple to use and it's completely free. Once you've signed-up to support Juvenile Arthritis Research through easyfundraising, each time you shop on line you can raise a free donation for us. It is that easy. All funds received are processed and sent to us by easyfundraising. We don't get to see who supports us, or where they shop, so it is a great way to raise funds safely and securely whilst shopping online.

To sign up:

1. Visit www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/juvenilearthritisresearch/

2. Click 'Join us'.

3. Each time you use easyfundraising to shop online, we get a donation at no cost to you!