Season's greetings! I am Rachel and I blog at nest full of eggs. Many thanks to Suz and Laura for the invitation, I am so happy to be a part of this holiday series, and am really looking forward to reading about everyone's traditions from around the world and not to mention all the Christmas sewing inspiration!

It has been said: "Christmas is for children." My favorite childhood Christmas time memories are playing in the snow, eating Christmas cookies baked from recipes from the 'Betty Crocker's Cooky Book' (I grew up in the same place where General Mills has it's headquarters), and I remember by our Christmas stockings there were always an orange, 3 apples (red, yellow, and green), and a loaf of sweet bread (mine was cranberry).

Now today with my own family we have many Christmastime traditions, foods, activities and other festive things that we do. There are too many to share, so for today I will share just one.

Our lives are very full during Advent, one of the festive days we observe is Saint Nicholas Day which is celebrated on December 6. On the evening of December 5th each of my three children put out a pair of wooden clogs (they came from my childhood when my parents visited the Netherlands, they brought these back for my older sister, older brother, and I). The next morning my children find gold foiled chocolate coins, a clementine, a candy cane, and a chocolate Saint Nicholas.
I am so excited to share my daughter's Christmas outfit for this year with you. It is a gold sequin Christmas dress and a red military Christmas dress coat.
 A few weeks ago, a friend gave me a Little Skye catalog. Going through the pages, my daughter fell in love with the sequin dresses. I found some teeny tiny gold sequin stretchy fabric at a fabric warehouse, it was exactly the type of fabric I was hoping to find!
 This is the perfect season to wear sequins. Adding *s*p*a*r*k*l*e* to the holiday season. The dress becomes one giant disco ball! Bringing light to our dark winter days.
 She thinks the dress is gorgeous :)
I also sewed her a hair accessory to coordinate with her Christmas ensemble, it's a fabric covered headband with a bow, made out of a gold fabric that was found in the special occasion/costume section, I think it's called 'liquid gold.'

Now moving onto the red military coat... 
I did another knock-off (modeled photo found here). I used thick red wool and 12 gold buttons (24K plated).
During the winter it gets quite cold where we live, so a nice cozy and warm wool coat will be very practical.
By the way I used Oliver + S sewing patterns (but highly modified) to achieve these looks.
Merry Christmas from Minnesota, USA!

(Now I have to go pick up all those little sequins that are all over my sewing room floor...)

Pop over to craftstorming today to see what Mie from sewing like mad has made...I can't wait!