Christmas Town

It's the start of the Christmas season, and Lauren Gabriel is moving from Boston to Springfield to start a permanent teaching job in January. Besides leaving behind friends, she is also leaving behind a relationship with Eric Fitzgerald, with who she has just broken up in realizing they were moving in different directions, especially with regard to their want or not as the case may be for children in their future. Lauren got into teaching in her love of children, especially as she was orphaned at age six, and having grown up in the foster system, she now wants all children to feel loved. Nonetheless, her father, Frank Gabriel, who was a traveling salesman, wrote Lauren a series of letters before his passing, they delivered during key milestones in what was then her future life. En route to Springfield, Lauren is forced to stay overnight in small town Grandon Falls. It isn't until she is in town for a few hours that she realizes that Grandon Falls was where Frank purchased what was her favorite Christmas ornament - an angel tree topper - he having it sent back to wherever he purchased it to have it repaired just before he passed, with Lauren now only having the angel's broken wing. Lauren extends her stay in Grandon Falls if only to see if she can locate the angel in the remote possibility that it still exists wherever he sent it for repairs. In the process, Lauren befriends many of the townsfolk, including: Betty, the owner/operator of the Christmas Cafe; schoolteacher Gloria, Betty's silent, or not so silent business partner; Rod Loomis, who owns the very cluttered antiques shop; and arguably most importantly Travis Mabry, the town's fix-it guy, and Travis' ten year old foster son of eight months, Dylan Hart. The longer Lauren stays in town, the more conflicted she becomes about her future, especially between her set future in Springfield versus what feels like home in Grandon Falls with Travis and Dylan, and as Eric comes back into her life willing to move closer to her thoughts about having that family together.