The 25th of each month is an especially difficult day for Terri Parker as she grieves the loss of her young, vibrant daughter, Lucie Moore, whose promising life was cut short on July 25 of this year. Lucie went to bed one night at her apartment in New York City’s financial district, and she never woke up.

Terri knew that the first Christmas after 23-year-old Lucie’s death would be excruciating. The fact that Christmas Day falls on the 25th wouldn’t make it any easier. She had begun to dread Christmas.

But then, her friends stepped in to help Terri not only survive the holiday season but actually have something to look forward to every day. While she and her husband Dennis attended a Christmas party on the last day of November, her neighbors in the Parkers’ Inverness neighborhood near Birmingham set up a 7.5-foot tree, complete with lights and a tree skirt, in her sunroom.

Hanging on the tree was a note from “Lucie’s elves,” who promised to bring her an ornament every day, beginning on December 1, to honor Lucie’s memory.

“This has given me something to look forward to,” says Terri, who starts looking for the daily arrival of each ornament at her doorstep first thing every morning. “It’s given us such joy in seeing how much others loved Lucie, but also how they love and care enough for us to make this gesture. It’s humbling.”

Lucie was living her lifelong dream of working in fashion merchandising in New York City. A graduate of Birmingham’s Oak Mountain High School and Auburn University, she had spent two summers working as a nanny in the Hamptons to fund a trip abroad, and she had interned at the clothing brand LoveShackFancy. A year ago, she landed a full-time job in the corporate office of designer Hugo Boss.

“She was motivated, had big dreams, adventurous,” Terri says of her daughter. “She was so full of hope and aspiration.”

After going to the beach for a family vacation this past summer, Terri dropped Lucie at the airport in Panama City, Florida, for the flight back to New York on a Sunday. Monday night, Lucie FaceTimed her mother from one of her favorite spots – the rooftop of her apartment building, which afforded a view of the Brooklyn Bridge – where she was reading.

“She texted me again right before she went to bed,” Terri says. “She did not wake up.” Her roommates heard her alarm going off the next morning. Lucie looked like she was still asleep, lying on her stomach, her eye mask still on, her hair tied back in a scrunchie.

The family is still waiting for the final death report, Terri says, but they’ve learned that Lucie’s heart was enlarged and her left ventricle was dilated, so she didn’t have enough oxygen in her bloodstream. Terri still doesn’t know if the cause was genetic or viral.

Each ornament tells a story about Lucie’s wonderful life. Most are accompanied by a note from the giver, telling why they chose it.

A Hugo Boss ornament represents how much she loved her first real job. Her employer loved her, too, Terri says. The company generously flew the family to New York to clean out Lucie’s apartment, and her boss described Lucie as “our rising star.”

There’s a Leaning Tower of Pisa ornament to commemorate a whirlwind trip to Italy the week before she moved to New York. Always up for an adventure, Lucie spent two days in Pisa on just a few hours’ notice to help a family friend.

The Brooklyn Bridge, which Lucie loved to see at night, is represented on another ornament.

Another ornament is made from the sheet music to the song “Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)” by Hillsong UNITED, which was played at Lucie’s funeral.

A bottle of Champagne represents Lucie’s “bubbly spirit.” Ramen noodles symbolize Lucie’s sensible commitment to eating cheap ramen throughout the week so she could indulge in New York City restaurants on weekends.

Many of the friends who comprise the group of Lucie’s elves are in Terri’s neighborhood book club. Last year, the group read the book “The 13th Gift: A True Story of a Christmas Miracle” by Joanne Huist Smith, which is about a woman who didn’t want to celebrate Christmas after losing her husband. In the book, something was left on her doorstep every day. The book inspired Terri and her friends to do the same for a widow at their church last year, and they’re doing it again for another family this year.

“That’s the heart of my group of friends,” she says. “They’re always doing something for someone.”

If anyone knows how important it is to have something to look forward to amid grief, it’s Terri. “One little gesture every day can change somebody’s mindset completely,” she says.

Receiving the ornaments for Lucie’s tree “has given us so much hope and joy we hadn’t expected to have this Christmas,” Terri says. “This has been the kindest, most selfless gift our family has ever received.”

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