John Edwards proposed to his baby mama, Rielle Hunter, during a holiday getaway — and introduced her and their love child to his kids — barely three weeks after their mother, Elizabeth Edwards, died of cancer, the National Enquirer reported yesterday.

The former Democratic presidential candidate brought his children — Cate, 28, Jack, 10 and Emma Claire, 12 — for the first meeting with his ex-campaign videographer and their 2-year-old half-sister, Frances Quinn Hunter, at a chain eatery called the Macaroni Grill in Charlotte, NC.

“After discussing it with a friend, Rielle said she decided to tell John’s kids, ‘Call me Mommy,’ ” the Enquirer reported, quoting a source close to the family.

PHOTOS: JOHN EDWARDS AND RIELLE HUNTER

The paper said the ex-North Carolina senator spent Christmas at his family’s Chapel Hill home, then hauled his brood to a lodge near Charlotte, where Rielle, 46, lives with Frances Quinn.

Edwards, according to the Enquirer’s source, had thought it was time for the still-grieving Jack and Emma to meet Frances Quinn. The two children had known of their half-sister, but Elizabeth had banned such a meeting from occurring, the source said.

The tabloid reported that Hunter wept with joy at the sight of the children together.

Edwards then “pledged his undying love” for his mistress and “promised her that one day, they would all ‘become one big, happy family,’ ” according to an Enquirer source.

“Clearly, he was saying, ‘I want you to marry me,’ but nothing is official yet.”

A family spokeswoman for Edwards denied he proposed to Hunter, saying, “I can tell you that it’s not true,” the Daily Beast reported Friday.

Edwards and Elizabeth, 61, had been married for 32 years, but she called it quits last January, when he finally admitted his ongoing affair with his campaign worker and their baby’s birth. The Enquirer broke the story of the affair and baby.

In the weeks before her Dec. 7 death from breast cancer, Elizabeth Edwards cut the cheater out of her will.

“This is the absolute last thing in the world [Elizabeth] wanted,” the tabloid quoted a source as saying. “Rielle is the woman she once labeled ‘pathetic’ and ‘a homewrecker’ . . . She did not want John to introduce their kids to his love child — let alone Rielle.”