Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without our favourite festive event, the annual carol concert. This year it takes place at the picturesque St George’s Church, Queen Square on Thursday 10 December and promises to be just as magical as ever. Come along to hear beautiful singing and festive readings from actresses Gemma Jones and Joan Walker, and actor Stephen Campbell-Moore.

We’ll have the choral talents of The Mary Ward Singers, the Julius Singers, the haunting melodies of harpist Bethan Semmens and The Queen Square Scratch Orchestra will performing again for us this year, too.

The festivities kick off with a drinks and nibbles reception at 6.30pm – so we hope to see you for a mince pie or two before the concert starts at 7.15pm. The evening will end around 9pm. This is one of our most popular fundraisers, and tickets always sell out fast, so do snap up yours today!

We’ve recently joined forces with online shopping and price comparison website, Give As You Live, and every single time you spend, you’ll generate a free donation for us! Buy from top retailers such as Amazon, Ebay, M&S, Tesco, Asos and more than 4,000 other leading online stores, and a percentage of every purchase is donated to The National Brain Appeal, without costing you a penny extra.

Best of all, you can download a handy pop-up banner which alerts you every time you shop on a donor-retailer’s site, so you need never miss an opportunity to support us.

All you need to do is go to the website Give As You Live and choose The National Brain Appeal as your charity. It really couldn’t be easier!

This year we have a fantastic range on offer, from wonderful London scenes (above) to fun, vintage designs – but they are selling out very fast so get your order in today to avoid disappointment! All proceeds from the card sales come back to us so we can support Queen Square.

Finally, do pop along to our Christmas sales, which are held every Tuesday (10-4pm) from now up until 15 December in The National Hospital. We’ll have brimming stalls, full of festive treats and gifts. We look forward to seeing you!

For more events, personal stories and how you can get involved, please visit nationalbrainappeal.org, or follow us on Twitter @brainappeal and Facebook at fb/TheNationalBrainAppeal

Theresa, Marcelle, Brooke, Cara, Leigh and Tina