Christmas is meant to be a time we share with our family and friends. However, the festive season feels particularly empty when we are separated from our loved ones.
Kate McCann, mum of Madeleine who disappeared 10 years ago, knows what that heartache feels like.
"For families like ours who have to live with the agony of a missing child – or indeed any relative – Christmas can be a hugely painful time," Kate wrote in the Telegraph.
Madeleine disappeared in May 2007 when the McCanns were on a family holiday in Portugal. Her whereabouts are still unknown.
This will be the 11th Christmas without Madeleine in the McCann household. Kate recounted the last Christmas she spent with Madeleine, who was three at the time.
They gave the girl a toy kitchen wrapped in a bow.
"I remember seeing her face when she walked in. She was beside herself," the mum wrote.
"The first Christmas we had after Madeleine went missing I couldn’t do anything," she confessed, "I felt so numb that I couldn’t buy presents or cards or even put up the Christmas tree."
Kate said that the holidays got easier year after year, and she and her husband Gerry rallied for the sake of their twins, 12-year-olds Sean and Amelie.
"That doesn’t mean it isn’t hard," she continued, "Everything is tinged with pain."
The mum wrote about the 'ever-present' heaviness she experiences from missing her daughter. The McCanns have holiday tradition that help them feel closer to their Madeleine, though.
The family will hang a stocking for her, like they always do, and purchase her presents that are eventually stored in their loft and Madeleine's wardrobe.
"She would be a teenager now so I always try and pick something that would be suitable and enjoyable for her no matter what age she is when she gets to open them," Kate touchingly said.
She also expressed her gratitude that the police are still investigating Madeleine's disappearance over a decade later, and hoped that families like hers are receiving the help they greatly need at this time of year.
Kate ended her piece with an important and heartbreaking plea:
"While people gather with their families this weekend and enjoy meals and swap presents together – I would urge them to remember the missing. We must never forget them."
