the girl with the little black cat.: Merry Christmas Eve!

What a fun day-before-Christmas we've had. Tons (and tons) of baking, lounging around the house together, attending a candlelight service at church, and we got to open up our stockings early! Today was also my last day to drop off packages. Sorry to my friends who won't be getting gifts from me tomorrow. ;) And, as you can see, I'm cross-stitching a bell pattern from the 1970s that I picked it up for a dollar at a thrift shop yesterday. Should keep me busy for a while.

My siblings and I ended up matching really well for the Christmas Eve service. Not even on purpose, we're just that talented. Also, aren't my little brother and sister so cute?

After church we were visited by a Christmas elf a little early, and discovered that my Vanilla & Lace Lucy Pevensie dress had arrived just in the nick of time! What a beautiful surprise! My mom was so excited that it came in time for Christmas, that she let me open it as soon as we got it. I'm really impressed by the workmanship of the dress, and the fit is just perfect. I love it and I'll be ordering another one of Abi's dresses in the future.

Then we took a few Christmas photos!

My mom and I tried our hand at baking a special date pudding recipe, too. My grandma on my dad's side wrote an autobiography a few years back and it includes tons of Hungarian recipes, along with a few others she's collected along the way. She had marked the date pudding recipe as my other grandmother's favorite dessert. It was really nice to bake something sweet with my mom and remember her mom together.