Baby in Red

This time of year I always like to get Ellie all dressed up in a fun Christmas dress for church. I'm pretty frugal when it comes to clothes for my kids and try not to go overboard, but I admit that I am kind of a sucker for all those pretty holiday dresses. I get how some people can go a little crazy, turning their baby girls into living dolls to dress up. So every year I find some kind of spectacular deal on one, and then Ellie wears it every Sunday from Thanksgiving to New Years.

This year she actually inherited her dress from her best friend Danni, who brought it over one Saturday evening in September before Ellie went to bed. The next day Ellie insisted on wearing the "Danni dress," (both to her and Danni's delight) and has already gotten quite a bit of mileage out of it.

When I snapped this picture of Ellie, I thought of her Christmas dresses over the last few years, all the red, and was reminded of a story my grandma told me a couple years ago.

Loyal readers will remember that Ellie is named after my grandmother, who goes by Betty, but Ellie calls her "Grandma Awesome" because that's how she said her last name when she was learning to talk (who's the favorite now?).

This is her. Not exactly sure what age she is here, but I like the picture. My grandmother, Betty, was named after her grandmother, who went by Lizzy.

This is Lizzy on her wedding day. Lizzy had a sister named Charlotte (Lottie). My childhood was filled with Lizzie and Lottie lore. They were like characters from a book, even raised by a wicked (well, mean) stepmother and stepsister. (Sidenote: Ellie was almost a "Lottie.")

Anyway, this particular story I had not heard until a couple years ago around the holidays. Apparently Lizzie (who was born sometime in second half of the 19th century--I know, I know, I should look up the dates for a better story; sorry, Mom) was also named for her grandmother, who I guess might have actually gone by Elizabeth. I don't know how far the name goes back, but someone ought to have used the whole thing. Apparently this Elizabeth wanted a granddaughter named for her. So when her daughter was pregnant, she told her and her husband that if they named the baby for her, she would make a new dress for the baby.

Well, the baby came and was a girl, so they named her Elizabeth. The proud papa was traveling and stopped in to visit his mother-in-law to give her to news. She knew he would be traveling back through in a matter of maybe a couple of days or so to get home (I don't know, hazy on the details here), so she would have to hurry and make a dress if she was to hold up her end of the deal. The only fabric she really had on hand was the red gingham curtains over the window. But a deal was a deal, so she made a new little dress out of it (and you thought Maria von Trapp was so original). The parents graciously accepted the gift and put their baby girl in the bright red dress. 

 Lizzie, however, was mortified at the details of this story. Remember, this was all happening back in the 1800s. People dressed babies in white. Period. "Imagine! Putting a baby in a red dress," she always scoffed when relating this story.

Yeah. Lousy parents. Sorry, Great-Great-Grandma Lizzie. I'm going to have to side with Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandma Elizabeth on this one. I quite like my baby in red.