Thousands of people in B.C.'s South Coast and Vancouver Island got a welcome gift from BC Hydro just in time for Christmas — the restoration of their power.

The province has been battered by a series of severe storms over the past two months that have, at times, knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people and forced as many as two million in the Vancouver area to boil all their water before drinking it.

In the latest bout, a storm with winds that reached 120 kilometres per hour in some areas of the coast Sunday — including the Queen Charlotte Islands — and knocked out electricity in thousands of homes.

The winds were only slightly tamer further south, blasting at up to 110 km/h on Vancouver Island and up to 70 km/h on the Lower Mainland.

But by Monday, the lights were back on in the Greater Vancouver and Victoria areas, as well as Campbell River, Port Hardy and Quadra Islands.

Gusts Sunday were strong enough to fell trees in Vancouver, including a 20-metre-tall cedar that smashed through the roof of a house and another that snapped across a road, snarling traffic on a main downtown route, Granville Street.

At Grouse Mountain just outside the city, high winds made it too dangerous to operate the gondola service for skiers, but rides later resumed.

There have been no reported injuries.