Jesse Tree Tradition

When Ryan and I got married someone gave us this little book entitled The Advent Jesse Tree along with a box of ornaments and so that Christmas, our first Christmas together, we started a new tradition for our family of two at the time. And this year our family of four is finding great meaning in it. The absolute best part of my day is when the four of us gather together on the couch, turn out all the lights except for the ones on this little tree and spend a few minutes together talking about God and singing a few carols before we head off to bed. Now it's not always perfect. Last night Christian almost had to be dismissed from this special family time because of an attitude situation, but when I first said it was "family time" he yelled "yippee" and took off to find Daddy and Kenna.

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So let me explain this little tradition. First of all, it's called a Jesse Tree because it was out of the line (or family tree) of Jesse that Jesus Christ was born. You can purchase the book but the ornaments have to be made. Unfortunately you can't just go to Target and buy a set. But don't despair...more on that later. Anyway there are 25 different ornaments, each of them symbols from the Old and New Testament that tell the story of God's redemptive plan.

For example, this was our first ornament. It's a globe and that night we talked about how God made the world and everything in it!


Our second night was this little snake wrapped around a branch with an apple. Can you guess what this symbolized? That night we talked about what sin is and we talked about how Satan came to deceive people. I think it's the first time we've really talked with Christian about "the bad guy named Satan." We've talked about sin before, but not really Satan. It was good. I think he got it.
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There are 25 ornaments in all. Everything from a cross to Jacob's ladder. I love this book because it helps you get the whole picture of the purpose of the birth of Jesus. The way most people get the ornaments that go with the book is to have a party. I know that our church organized one and 25 women signed up and each woman was assigned one symbol/one ornament to make. They had to make 25 of that particular ornament and then they had a little party and exchanged the ornaments. So here's the deal, if you're interested. If I can get enough people who are interested we could have our own little cyber Jesse Tree party. I think it's too late to do it this year, I think everyone is too busy. But leave a comment if you would be interested in having your own Jesse Tree. If I get close to 25 people to sign up then we could have a Jesse Tree party sometime in January and then we could be ready with our ornaments for next Christmas. You can ask your non-blog reading friends if they want to participate too. For example, you could leave a comment saying that two of you want to participate or four of you want to participate. Then I'll assign everyone an ornament to create and I'll give you an idea of how to make it (some of them are hard). Everyone will make 25 of that ornament and then you'll send them all to me. I'll put together a package of 25 ornaments for each person who participated and then I'll send it back to you. Make sense? We'll see if we can get enough people to participate. If not, then it'll be up to you to have your own party with your own friends. You really only need the book to get started.