First (and last) Christmas dresses

I misguidedly decided to sew the girls Christmas dresses this year with little matchy shrugs. My parents were coming up to visit and the girls are already so adored, no matter what wretched trouble they are making, that I thought I would throw the family into saccharine overdrive with some sweet holiday sewing.

Somewhere, some little devils were laughing their wee horned heads off.

I found beautiful fabric with little cardinals and chickadees on it in two different colourways, and (pat on the back) some co-ordinating shiny red and red wine coloured shiny fabrics in the bargain bin. Oh yes, I am thrifty too. Did I mention the shiny fabric that was large enough for Eden's dress matched the bird fabric in the green colourway?
Eden here hates green. And Arlo of course hates dresses (I could not even find one photo of her not trying to tear her dress off). Yet through this I soldiered on, determined to get two lovely dresses ready for Christmas day. I cut out Eden's entire dress in the green birds fabric with assurances from Boss Hog that she would warm to it regardless of it's greenness. Silly silly mom. Not a chance. So back to the dress once again and cut it out of the shiny wine coloured fabric. She does love it, but she looks a bit as though she's wearing a negligee. We did manage to get one picture of her wearing both the dress and the abominable green birds shrug. Click. The birds will lay in a heap until Halloween and maybe then Arlo will be some kind of pants wearing forest sprite.