I would put together a basket of several kinds of goodies so you cover all bases. You could put together a themed sort of basket. ex: a cooking basket with a cookbook, cooking mixes, a gift card, etc or a night in basket with popcorn, blockbuster gift card, candy, etc. You could get things like Cracker Barrel jars of jellies and muffin mixes and then a Cracker Barrel gift card. You could put together a basket of tea/coffee cups, choc covered spoons, different types of teas, and then a Starbucks gift card. Or, you can look online for restaurants in their city and buy a gift card to a nice restaurant. Sometimes less is more too, a really nice card telling them exactly what this means to you and just a small something to go with it. I have a friend who makes specialty chocolates that are really cute. www.chocolatesunflower.com She can ship it to them. She has chocolate business cards that say "thank you" or "you made my day", etc You can add that to a gift card. Even a nice bottle of wine and some nice stemless glasses with a nice wine cork, if you know they drink. A cheese set can be ordered online. You can order cheeses and a nice cutting board and a cheese knife. Pampered chef has these things except for the cheese. You can go to Cheesecakefactory.com and order them a nice cheesecake. Or, Cabella's has some nice food things to order and have shipped.
Hope this works out for you. Worst case, can you and your child go with your husband? Spending Christmas in a hotel would not be great for you but your son would not care either way and he would be with his daddy. :o)
W.