Hope: One of the new pictures of Madeleine released by her parents

Kate and Gerry McCann have told of their heartache as they face a third Christmas without their missing daughter.

In a new message on the Find Madeleine website, they appealed to the public to continue to lend their 'eyes, ears, hearts and minds' to help find the six-year-old, who went missing in the Algarve in 2007.

'It is heartbreaking to accept the likelihood of spending a third Christmas without Madeleine. Her absence is even more tangible at this time of year,' they wrote. 

'This drive and perseverance to find her is not wishful thinking; it is reinforced by facts and evidence...there is a very real likelihood she is alive.'

The couple, both 41, have also released new pictures of Madeleine from Christmas 2006 at their home in Rothley, Leicestershire. 

The new message on the Find Madeleine website, added said: ‘There will be a spare place at the Christmas table again this year.

‘If you know anything, do the right thing and helps us fill it.'

Doctors Kate and Gerry, both 41, also posted a photograph of Madeleine which was taken during Christmas 2006.

Christmas past: Madeleine feeding her younger sister Amelie in 2006

It shows the youngster at the family home in Rothley, Leicestershire, five months before she went missing from a holiday resort in Praia da Luz, Portugal.

She is pictured sitting on the floor, dressed in red, feeding a chocolate lollipop to her younger sister Amelie.

The couple said: ‘There is only one thing Madeleine wants this Christmas – and that’s to be back home.’

They urged: ‘If you know where she might be, please help.’

The McCanns, whose youngster daughter and her twin brother Sean are now four, added: ‘All we want this Christmas if for Madeleine to be home.’