As professional wedding planner Mallory Shepard organizes a Christmas Eve gala for her best friend, Olivia, the obstacles are starting to outnumber Santa’s reindeer . . .

Olivia’s dreaming of a white Christmas—as in a white wedding gown and all the trimmings. But that’s not the only event that’s keeping everyone busy. Olivia’s family are in real estate development, and they’re sponsoring Paws and Poinsettias—a benefit for the Port Quincy animal shelter. Meanwhile, Mallory’s mom wants to use her daughter’s connection to snag a job staging homes for the company . . . and the current stager is not filled with holiday cheer at the news that she might be replaced.

When the endangered employee downs some antifreeze-spiked punch at a party, Mallory has a murder to solve—among other mysteries including a missing cat, a toy-drive heist, and a baby found in a manger thirty years earlier . . .