Christmas Dress Agony

This is a big year for Christmas at our house - We are headed back to Carolina Belle's Mother Country (yay, North Carolina!) to spend the entire week of Christmas at my parents' house, along with my brother, sister in law, and sweet baby nephew. Last Christmas, we were here with DH's family, so I am beside myself with joy at the prospect of a Carolina Christmas.

Last year, I hit it out of the park (in my humble opinion) with Miss Priss's Christmas dress. Behold, the magnificent Amanda Remembered Nativity Bishop:

After last year's glorious selection, I was eager to find an equally gorgeous follow-up this year. Sadly, as each line debuted their Christmas selections, I was disappointed time and time again. My visions of Miss Priss prancing down the same church aisle I walked down as a bride in The Perfect Christmas Dress were not working out as I had planned, because I couldn't find a dress that inspired me.

Finally, I happened upon this (admittedly beautiful) Strasburg bishop, to use for Christmas Day:

And I decided on this (again beautiful) white bishop from Orient Expressed for Christmas Eve:

I do think that the white bishop with a red satin hairbow really will be gorgeous at Church.

I was (mostly) satisfied. But then today, I found this:
Yes, that would be a GORGEOUS Anavini Nutcracker bishop dress, for those of you playing at home. Since I really do think that the white Orient Expressed bishop is ideal for church on Christmas Eve, the first thought I had was to return the Strasburg bishop. However, due to Strasburg's stupid (and ridiculously draconian) return policy, I was out of luck. The AGONY!

I simply couldn't leave Miss Priss's perfect Christmas dress out there waiting for her. It would break my heart. In swooped my dear friends (and fellow children's clothing addicts) C and A, who are the BEST when it comes to helping me rationalize purchases I really shouldn't make. Hee. C astutely pointed out that the Strasburg bishop would likely fit next year (her very tall 3.5 year old can wear the size I have, and Miss Priss will be 3.5 next Christmas). Plus, she knows me well enough to know that I simply had to have the dress. We are both big Christmas People, and suckers for all children's Christmas clothing. My friend A ran the numbers, and somehow came up with a formula in which, spread out over the number of years that I can feasibly choose Miss Priss's Christmas dresses, made the dress essentially free. Who can argue with that?

Now I'm thinking that I should take Miss Priss to the Sugar Plum Fairy Tea Party here in town so she can wear her dress . . .

It's the Mooooost Wonderful Tiiiiiime of the Yeeeaaar . . .

Being the good Southern girl that I am, I like to buy a lot of Miss Priss and Master P's clothes from trunk shows (well, not so much Master P anymore - He's getting a little old for appliqued elephants). The bad part of buying from trunk shows is that I have to order everything in February (for the spring/summer) and July (for the fall/winter). It's also bad because the credit card bills for those months are usually on the scary side, and I often (sometimes justifiably) get the evil eye from DH. The GOOD part of ordering from trunk shows (aside from the precious clothes) happens about now, because all those clothes I selected and paid for several months ago start showing up on my doorstep. Hooray!!! For example, yesterday, this cute little number arrived from Just Ducky (I did Miss Priss's full monogram on my order):

A few weeks ago, this Wizard of Oz bishop arrived from another one of my favorites, Orient Expressed:
It has a darling little sweater to match, and I actually found "ruby slippers" at Target to complete the look (I don't usually go for sparkly shoes for non-costume wear, but I figured I'd make an exception for the Wizard of Oz bishop).

I also got this darling Ladybug pants set - love the polka dot pants:

And this pumpkin bishop for the pumpkin patch trip and Thanksgiving:

From another favorite company, Kelly's Kids, I picked up one of these name shirts and the polka dot pants:

Of course, the best deliveries are yet to come - My custom orders (these are the BEST trunk shows - you pick the style of outfit, you pick the fabric, you pick the applique/smocking, etc.)! My favorites are Beaux et Belles and Hannah Kate, but there are others I like, too. I'm trying out Three Mommas for the first time this season - We've got the little apple outfit coming (I liked the sample so much that I didn't change a thing!):

So fun! I wish I had Miss Priss's closet.

The Change

My mom is coming to visit this weekend, and I am going to take advantage of her presence to accomplish one of my least favorite tasks of each season: The Great Closet Change. Basically, this involves me going to Target and buying four giant rubbermaid bins, and then spending several hours wading through Miss Priss and Master P's closets, pulling out the out of season items, and arranging the new season's clothes. For many people, this is probably an easy thing to accomplish. At our house, it is an all-day affair (or at least, it feels that way). DH would (and will) no doubt comment that this headache could be alleviated by purchasing fewer clothes. Silly boy! Miss Priss and Master P have a reputation to uphold! So, for the love of all things smocked and monogrammed, I continue to face this painful task twice a year.

It gets more complicated as they get older, because I cannot simply put everything away. For one thing, the clothes have gotten too big to keep them all (it's not like those tiny newborn bubbles). In addition, some of them might actually fit next year, so I don't want them hidden down in the basement storage room, where I might forget about them (On second thought, if I "forget" about them it means I get to go buy them more new stuff next year . . . hmmm).

I have to examine each piece, to determine whether it goes in the "donate-without-a-hint-of-sadness" pile (those are mostly the playclothes), the "probably-will-donate-someday-when-they-are-in-college-and-I-can finally-part-with-it" pile, the "could-not-bear-to-part-with-under-any circumstances" pile. My problem is that most of their clothes fall into category three for me, hence the giant mountain of Rubbermaid containers that reaches almost to the ceiling of our basement storage room. Eeek.

And so, off to Target I go, where I'm sure I will pick up $100 or so of other decorative items that we "must have" in addition to my Rubbermaid bins. I do love Target.