Advent Season – Part One, Jesse Tree

I think this Advent season is the most enjoyable one I can remember for a long time.  It is not that the other ones have not been fun, but this season was particularly relaxing and wonderful.

Of course, as part of that, avoidance of “this machine” means I haven’t had time to record any of it, so I’d like to take some time to share and record the things we did this Advent season that have been enjoyable for our family.

Our first tradition began two years ago when I read this post about a Jesse Tree.  I thought it was a great idea and immediately printed out these devotionals.  I had to “slap it together” quickly the first year so we made ornaments by coloring the pictures on the devotional sheets and gluing them to poster board.  They aren’t creative or beautiful, but they worked.

Some of our original ornaments are still around on our Jesse Tree.

The world was created by God and our grain picture for the story of Ruth and Boaz:

I got myself more organized after our second year and after being inspired by these ideas, I hit the stores for clearance ornaments.  I was able to find all sorts of fun ornaments to make our Jesse Tree a little more creative and unique.

We also included a few homemade ones:

A red rope for the story of and a pipe cleaner rainbow:

 

Michael’s had some pre-made wood craft ornaments, so I grabbed a tree to represent the “stump of Jesse” and a crown for the reign of King David.

I loved this fire I found for the prophet Elijah.  Not only was he a little “wild” (and the ornament says “The call of the wild”), but it is a reminder of the time he challenged the Baal worshippers to a “bonfire duel” and God showed Himself to be the only true God.  This ornament was perfect!

I have no clue what this golden, plastic, glass-looking ornament is supposed to be, but it worked perfectly as a representation for a bottle of oil that was used to anoint King David as a child.

The story of Abraham and Isaac includes a ram that was provided for a sacrifice in place of Isaac.  A ram was a bit tough to find, so this sparkly reindeer will have to do on our tree.  And next to that is a “key” (ornament found at a Hardware Store) which represents the prophets who hold the “key” to the future.

This white candy cane represents Abraham and Sarah, who were to OLD to have children, but God fulfilled his promise to them.  This candy cane represents an OLD person’s walking cane.

About halfway through the Advent Season, I snapped this picture of our Jesse Tree.  It sure looks cute this year with the montage of creative ornaments! 

Another thing I did this year to make life a little easier was that I cut the devotions and glued them on notecards.  Then I punched a hole and stuck the notecards on a ring.  It was handy to have them all together, easily accessible, in a large ziploc bag with the ornaments.

I enjoyed this pause in our day to read God’s Word as walk through the plan of Jesus from the beginning!   Of course, once we got going this year, I realized that it was a GREAT way to begin to teach D (age 3) the stories of the Old Testament and the Christmas Story.  The girls have studied the Old Testament in depth, but I often forget that he is not yet familiar with many of these stories.

I was so thankful for this special way to celebrate the Advent Season and focus on God’s plan, perfectly planned and perfectly timed from the beginning.