Kate McCann’s presents for Maddie as she faces her 10th Christmas without her daughter
A stocking full of gifts will be kept in the youngster’s bedroom
KATE McCann will lay Christmas presents in daughter Madeleine’s bedroom and hopes one day she will be back home to open them.
A stocking full of gifts will be kept in Maddie’s pretty pink room which has remained untouched since she vanished nearly a decade ago.
It has become a shrine to her and is full of photos, drawings, and untouched Christmas and birthday presents.
Kate’s gesture comes after she told how she bitterly misses sharing Maddie’s excitement during the festive season and listening to her singing carols.
The anguished mum, who faces her milestone 10th Christmas without her eldest child, said the occasion would be “tinged with pain and longing.”
She said: “She should be here and we should be celebrating with her!”
But ex-GP Kate and heart doctor husband Gerry, both 48, will try and make it “as happy a family occasion as possible” for the sake of their 11-year-old twins Sean and Amelie.
Maddie’s parents have never given up hope that she could still be alive.
She would now be aged 13.
And to their daughter’s kidnapper or their friends and family they say: “Somebody knows. We just hope they find the courage and compassion to let us know too.”
The brave couple, in a new posting on the official Find Maddie website, said they hope support from others will “keep us strong and afloat during the difficult months to come.”
They have previously said: “We have not lost hope that we may get to celebrate another Christmas with her. If anything can drive us on, that most definitely will. The urge to look for Madeleine absolutely hasn’t changed at all.”
The family are expected to have a quiet family Christmas at home in Rothley, Leics.
Prayers will be said for Maddie during the village church’s Christmas Day service and a candle for the missing teenager burns round the clock beside the war memorial.
Scotland Yard are chasing up a final “last throw of the dice” lead that three-year-old Maddie was snatched by child traffickers during a bungled burglary at a holiday apartment in Portugal’s Praia da Luz in May 2007.
Kate and Gerry say in the shortest and simplest of festive postings, with no mention of the Met Police’s failed hunt to find their daughter: “This Christmas marks our tenth without Madeleine. There are no words really.
"The year ahead too is one which we never could have believed or contemplated we would have to face.”
They thank everyone “who hasn’t forgotten about Madeleine for their help and continued prayers.”
They add: “The support we continue to have from so many people, friends and strangers, will we’re sure, keep us strong and afloat during the difficult months to come.”
The McCanns, in their online message decorated with Christmas trees and stars, wish their supporters “hope, joy and peace” for the New Year.