Our Jesse Tree

Last year around the holidays I attended a wonderful Women's Ministry Event at our church. It was an all day event for women of all ages and there were various classes available that were all focused on the holidays. I went to one about holiday entertaining and easy holiday desserts among others. One of the classes I went to was all about the Jesse tree. I had never heard of a Jesse tree, so I was interested to learn more about it. Basically, it is a special tree that may be set up during the Advent Season. Each day you read a Bible Story from the old testament and add a new ornament to the tree. The tree is name after David's Father, Jesse, and is based on the verse "There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots," Basically it is a family tree for Jesus. I thought it was such a good idea and something I would love to do with our family. Last year the boys were a little young, but this year I decided to go ahead and start this new tradition.
I searched the internet and found a lot of resources. You can order ornaments, devotions, etc. What I discovered is that there is really no wrong way to do it. I saw beautiful homemade ornaments and at first I was quite intimidated. I am not crafty at all and really don't have the time to make elaborate ornaments. I almost chose to just skip it, but then it hit me that the look of the tree is not what matters. What matters is that I am teaching my children about what this season is truly about. I am so excited to teach them about the family of Jesse and all the people through history who helped prepare the world for the coming of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.

We decided to do our Jesse tree every night before the boys go to bed. Last night we read about creation. We actually didn't read the first 2 chapters of Genesis. We pretty much looked at a story in their children's Bible and discussed creation. The boys are pretty familiar with the story, so they helped tell it. I was surprised at how much Jax got into this part. He kept saying, "God made clouds. God made animals. God made trees."

Next, I let Jax put the first ornament on the tree. I just bought a little tree at Hobby Lobby, but you can do any kind of tree or branch. Sawyer colored a creation picture. I decided that every night we will alternate with one boy coloring and the other hanging the ornament.

Here is our tree with one little ornament. I just printed these little pictures of an earth for our first ornament. Tonight I will let them hang the picture of Adam and Eve that they color. There really is no uniform idea as to how we will do our ornaments. We are just going to do the best we can to make it personal and special for the boys.

Sawyer asked me today why our tree only had one ornament and I told him that we will add one every night until Christmas. I told him that tonight we would learn about Adam and Eve. He said, "Adam and Eve didn't listen. We shouldn't learn about them, because they made bad choices." I told him that we can learn from people's bad choices so it will be ok. He is too funny sometimes.