Anne Garrison's job as head toy buyer for Sinclair's chain of department stores headquartered in New York City is much different than her toy experience growing up at her father Bill Garrison's shop, Garrison's Toys in North Bay, Maine. While what she buys for Sinclair's is mostly high tech, Garrison's primarily sells Bill's own crafted wooden toys, Anne who learned how to carve as a child but who has put that part of her life behind her. While she has spent a few days in North Bay around Christmas Day most years, she is heading back three weeks before Christmas this year as Bill is retiring and she is helping him at the store for this final Christmas before clearing it out to sell the property, with the plan being for him to move to Connecticut to be closer to both Anne and her sister. His original want was for Anne to take over the business. The store is not the only thing that might be closing in town as Dorothy Wentzell, the perceived cold-hearted owner of the town's largest employer Wentzell Lumber Mill, is thinking about selling and retiring as well, whoever the new owners of the property who will probably not keep it as a mill. The mill's General Manager, Keith McClain, moved to town following the passing of his wife so that his now ten year old daughter would have extra family in the form of Keith's sister-in-law Patty and her husband Sean. Keith would like to save the mill not only for his own sake - he not wanting to uproot Jessie again - but also for all his employees. Anne and Keith end up spending time together as they are wrangled into chairing the town's annual Christmas festivities: the tree lighting and silent auction, the Christmas carnival, and the Christmas pageant held on Christmas Eve. While Anne's high school boyfriend Tom Novak reenters her life in being the real estate agent handling the sale of the store, a mutual but unspoken attraction seems to be forming between Anne and Keith, especially as Anne is additionally helping Jessie with her solo in the pageant. While many things are up in the air for anything to happen between Anne and Keith - Anne heading back to New York potentially never to return to town with the sale of the store, and Keith possibly having to move if the mill property is sold - a set of themed wooden Santas that Anne carved just before she went away to college may play a part, those Santas which seem to be providing much needed inspiration to its recipients. Written by Huggo
