Sleepless Night

So tonight little miss punky butt has decided that she isn't going to sleep. She went down a little after 8:00 and Papa Bear and I went to bed a little before 10:00. Around 11:00 she woke up crying and I went in to see what was the matter. Well I thought she went back to sleep so I went back to bed. It wasn't even three minutes after I got comfortable that she started crying again. It's almost four hours later and we are sitting in the living room. She is eating cheerios and I am sitting here on the computer. Sadly enough I am not even tired anymore so I thought I would do a post.
So before we left for Christmas vacation she had just started sleeping through the night. I thought it was because of her new night light, but now I'm not so sure. I was able to lay her down, give her kisses, and walk away and she did fine. While we were away for Christmas she has to sleep in a strange bed and in a strange room. I understood that she was kind of scared to be in new surroundings so I sat with her until she went to sleep. She slept through the night while we were up there too. But we were sharing a room with her so our bed was right next to hers and I guess she just knew we were there. Then the night we came home she slept okay. The next couple of nights were not so great and then she had one really good night where she slept through the night and in until 8:30. If you have been following me for long you know that 8:30 is huge for us! We are usually up at 6:00. We haven't had a good night since that night. Tonight has just been the worst we have had in MONTHS. Now when I lay her down to bed she wants me sitting right there holding her hand until she falls asleep (which can sometimes be 30 minutes). I love that she wants me but hate that she HAS to have me right there with her in order to fall asleep. She shouldn't need that and  it is proving hard to break the habit. The other night I tried to just read bed time stories, give kisses, and then leave the room. She FREAKED out. I was expecting to let her cry it out. She wasn't just crying though. It's hard to explain exactly what she was doing but it was way worse! I let her carry on doing her fit for like 15 minutes and then I finally went in there.
So here is what I think I am going to do. If she ever goes to sleep tonight this morning then I am going to wake her early if she doesn't wake on her own. Then she is going to get a very limited nap. I'll start letting her cry it out then so that bed time isn't a huge shock. I'll wake her up after like 30 minutes knowing that she may be kind of cranky. Then we are going to keep her up until at least 8:00 and I am going to let her cry it out then too. Hopefully she will be so tired that she won't have enough  energy to cry freak out for too long. Hopefully that will lead to at least a full nights sleep. I'm thinking that maybe we should turn the monitor off too so that if she wakes up we won't feel the need to go in there until she really starts crying. Even then I may make her cry for at least 10 or 15 minutes before I run in there. I want to try to make her soothe herself go back to sleep on her own.
Is this horrible? I love my little girl but this whole no sleep thing is getting old. It's not usually that she needs anything. She just wants me to come in there. When I do she usually wants me to do something like cover her up. She is 27 months old. She really should be sleeping better than this by now.
Any opinions or tips would be much appreciated!