I can’t believe we’re coming to the end of another year and in its final month, December 2023 has been filled with festive films, food and fun.
Crip Life™
This month at Crip Life™, we marked the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, reviewed Everyday Citizenship – a book written by and for people with learning disabilities (which new newsletter subscribers can win a copy of), highlighted the lack of diversity in broadcasting, introduced you to an up and coming disabled cricketer, plus some festive content.
You can browse all the articles we published this month on our December 2023 archive page.
We’d appreciate you getting involved and supporting Crip Life™ in any way you can. This can be done by subscribing to our monthly newsletter (the next edition will be sent out 31/12/2023), following us on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & LinkedIn), advertising with us, publishing your research and/or donating to us.
Visit Crip Life™ and help us with dismantling disabling barriers one article at a time.
Busy Life is nominated for the BizBubble People’s Choice Award
Crip Life™ is a Busy Life™ publication and so this award will give a BIG BOOST to our online disability magazine and the other incredible work Joanna does at Busy Life!
Joanna Baker-Rogers at Busy Life has been nominated for the BizBubble People’s Choice Award. If you could all help her to win this business boosting award by voting, we’d be very grateful!
Simply head on over to www.bizbubble.co.uk/the-peoples-choice/ and click Busy Life (It’s in alphabetical order so easy to find) – it literally takes seconds! Thank you so much for supporting Joanna’s small business!
lABLEd Podcast Guest Booker
If you’ve been following me on social media or are already a loyal subscriber to the lABLEd Podcast, you may already be aware I’ve joined the team as their new guest booker. With my skills, knowledge and resources from my work at Disability Horizons and Crip Life™, I hope I can organise and secure many more high-profile and famous people from the disability community to come on as a guest.
If you’d like to be a guest on the lABLEd Podcast, you can email me at labledpodcastguestbookings@gmail.com.
Christmas 2023
My Christmas was another relaxed and chilled one full of festive films, food and fun. Mum and I took a trip to Gunwharf Quays to look at the Christmas lights, but sadly they weren’t as good as last year, but was still nice to get out of the house.
My favourite Christmas gifts were a friendship bracelet from Pluggy with our first name initials “E” (Emma) & “P” (Pluggy) and a guide dog sponsorship from Mum (the closest I’m going to get to have a puppy!).
Books
As it was Christmas time, I fancied reading some festive stories and surprisingly managed to read quite a few – some better than others:
- This Winter: A Heartstopper Novella by Alice Oseman
- The Christmas Star by Kate Forster
- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
- Lizzie’s Christmas Escape by Christie Barlow
- How to Lose a Guy Before Christmas by AJ Pine
- A Christmas Doll by Elvira Woodruff
- The Christmas Pig by JK Rowling
- An Angel Sings by Nadine Dorries
TV & Films
My favourite part of Christmas is watching countless number of Christmas films and TV specials. I managed to watch classic films I love, classic films I’d never seen before and some new releases – all with audio description, of course:
- Home Alone 1 & 2
- 4 Christmases
- Elf
- Love Actually
- The Grinch
- The Holiday
- The Santa Claus 1, 2 & 3
- The Santa Clauses
- The Christmas Chronicles 1 & 2
- A Muppets Christmas Carol
- It’s A Wonderful Life
- Planes, Trains and Automobiles
- Candy Cane Lane
- Your Christmas or Mine? 1 & 2
- Family Switch
- Father Christmas is Back
- Not Going Out Christmas Special 2023
- Gavin & Stacey Christmas Special 2019
As well as Christmas films and TV shows, I also managed to watch a few new non-festive films and TV shows including Wonka (in cinema), Chicken Run 2 and Under Pressure: The US Women’s World Cup Team.
Audio Description petition
My campaign for audio description has continued throughout December 2023 and the petition has now gained a total of 3685 signatures, which is incredible!
But I’m eager to reach thousands more. The more signatures we get, the more likely changes will be made within the TV and film industries. Please, please, PLEASE continue to sign & share my petition!
Guest Bloggers Wanted
I’m eager to collaborate with even more bloggers in 2024. So, if you’re a lifestyle, disability and/or music blogger, send me your blog stories. Plus let me know if you’d like me to feature on your blog as a guest blogger.
I’m flexible with any type of blog post – life story, disability awareness, music event, musician promotion – basically anything to do with life, disability or music!
In addition, I have a guest blog series called “RFD Question Time with…” where I interview disabled people and/or bloggers. If you’d like to be interviewed in this series, please also contact me.
Less than 60 hours left to donate to Rock For Disability in 2023
If you’ve been enjoying reading my blog content this year, please consider supporting me by donating money to help fund future blog posts. Plus 20% of each donation will go to a disability charity at the end of 2023!
So far, I’ve received £60 worth of donations. If you could help me reach my target of £100 by 31st December 2023, that would be very much appreciated.
Blog post roundup
In case you missed any of my blog posts this month, here is a roundup of them:
- Disability History Month – a letter to my younger self | AccessAble
- Music Interview: Past The Fall
- My emotional response to the love chase airport scene in the festive film Love Actually
- Music Interviews: 2023 roundup
Changes to blog content
Due to my other commitments, I have decided to make changes to how I put together and publish my blog content on Rock For Disability in 2024. More details will be revealed in my yearly review on 31st December 2023.
5 favourite blog posts
Here are my 5 favourite blog posts I’ve read this month:
- Disabled Bloggers, Podcasts and Influencers To Follow at Hannah’s Hope
- The colour of Purple at My Life, Kerry’s Way
- A Basic Christmas at Suzie Speaks
- A Few Life-Changing Life Lessons I Learnt at New Lune
- Roll Hard: Yet Another Christmas Story at Diary of a Disabled Person
