we wish you a
merry christmas!

funny little story...
so we're getting ready to open presents and i tell the girls to sit next to each other. well, they did. they sat down in a "sister's pose" figuring that i wanted to get a picture of them. my mom and dad got a great laugh out of that! i said, no just sit next to each other so you can open your presents!!! (this was not that picture, i just thought i'd share that little story on myself.)

christmas jamies
culbertson tradition since 2000

writing some little letters to santa
totally not staged either! somehow it's so much cooler to write a letter by candlelight!

cookies for santa & celery for the reindeer...
(we didn't have enough carrots for all of them!)

the stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

it was nice to spend a laid back christmas eve with my parents. i thought these pictures turned out really cute. wow... my kids look like them, don't they??

merry christmas from the
culbertson family!

Merry Christmas
from the Culbertson Family

i laugh every time i see this "stan" ornament. :) having an obvious plethora of "noel" and "joy" ornaments, my mom decided we needed a "stan" ornament! so she made it from a scrap of paper on my counter the first year we were married. and it has been on our tree ever year since! (the noel ornament was given to me by my great grandma when i was a kid, and the joy ornament was from my grandma.)


and this baby right here is stan's pride and joy. we found it at a local farmer's market 5 or 6 years ago. it clamps to the center of the tree, and the tracks go around it. it sits about 3/4 of the way up the tree. and it is by far the coolest christmas decoration we've ever found! :)

Picking out Ornaments

every year we pick out ornaments at a small local farmer's market in town called schuh farms. we usually get them when we get our tree, but this year we settled on a fake tree since stan was leaving. that and we put the tree up the day before halloween... and there are very few fresh cut trees available then! :)

so the girls picked out their ornaments... this is how the process went this year...

this is the ornament i really want!
maybe not... maybe i want this one...

no, wait! what about this one?

this one is really cute, too!!!
nope... this REALLY is the ornament i want!

birthday date
with my grandma

wednesday i had a fun day with my grandma. our birthdays are a few weeks apart... a good excuse for some lunch and shopping in la conner. :)

we took a couple of pictures before hand... and the signs were my present, that and a vintage coffee tin we found at one of the stores.