4As 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 . . .