With the festive season just around the corner, it’s time to think about Christmas cards!

As a Blue Peter veteran, you might expect me to urge you to make your own, but instead this year I would like to ask that you consider buying them to support WellChild, the national charity for sick children.

WellChild does a fantastic job helping seriously ill children and their families all across the UK through care, support and research.

They have a growing team of WellChild Children’s Nurses based up and down the country who work to get long term sick children out of hospital to be cared for at home with the right support. WellChild also does other great work like Helping Hands schemes where volunteers carry out projects to improve the homes of sick children and research into children’s health to find new ways to help seriously ill children in the future.

One simple way you can support to this fantastic charity is by buying WellChild Christmas cards, which are available online at <&bh"http://www.wellchild.org.uk">wellchild.org.uk<&eh> or by ringing 0845 458 8171.

That way when you send a greeting this Christmas you can be sure you are helping some of the most deserving and needy young people in the country.

Kids whose dearest wish is that they were home for Christmas with their family rather than living on a hospital ward.

Any help you can offer will be gratefully received and will help to give these children the Christmas and indeed the life, that we would want for our own kids.

And may I wish you a very Happy Holiday.

JANET ELLIS, TV Presenter, c/o WellChild, 16 Royal Crescent, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire