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I've written before about our Jesse Tree, my family's best-loved Christmas tradition. I get lots of e-mails and Google searches on the subject year-round, believe it or not, so I thought I'd answer a few of the questions that have come up when I've discussed it in the past. This has been such a meaningful tradition for our family, and it is not hard to implement--you can make the whole thing as simple or as involved as you'd like.
What is a Jesse Tree?
It's a way of celebrating the Advent season that addresses, in particular, how the Old Testament stories all pointed to the coming of Christ.
Where does the name come from?
So how does it work?
There are several different versions of the Jesse Tree tradition. In our family, we begin on December 1. Each day, we read a different Old Testament story (beginning with creation on December 1 on through the nativity on December 24). Corresponding to each story is a small ornament, representative of that particular story (here is a more detailed description of our ornament set). After our brief reading we hang the ornament on a small, two-foot, table-top Christmas tree. By Christmas Eve, we have a tree full of ornaments!
Where do you get the devotions?
I started with this and have adapted it over the last few years; I simply printed out a hard copy and have put it in a folder. You will find on-line several different collections of devotionals; many have been written over the years. Do an Amazon or Google search on Jesse Tree for some ideas.
**UPDATED TO ADD** I only just learned this morning that one of my very, very favorite bloggers, Ann Voskamp, has written a Jesse Tree devotional (you can see it here). And I don't know if you regularly read Ann (you should) but she writes so amazingly that I suspect even her grocery lists are poetic. Definitely check out this resource!
I'm not crafty. Is this out of my league?
Not necessarily. You can keep it pretty simple! You can buy Jesse Tree kits online if you're pressed for time, but gathering the ornaments myself was part of what made it so meaningful to me. The website we use offers patterns (found here). You could use these to cut out ornaments from felt, foam or paper. I probably did four or five of my ornaments this way. I also bought several at craft stores (many of them, such as Hobby Lobby, put their ornaments on sale for half off very often, and you can easily get pretty ornaments for a dollar or two each). I tried to get clever on a few--for example, for the story of the Fall, I found a little plastic apple and glued a plastic snake to it. For Joseph's "coat of many colors", I found some striped fabric and cut it out in the shape of a coat. For the devotional about how the prophets told of the coming Messiah, I bought a sparkly key (as in, "the prophets were unlocking the future"). See? There's no end to how you can put your own interpretation on this.
This has been an incredibly meaningful tradition for our family--these quiet moments in the middle of an otherwise busy season are a treasure. Does anyone else do this in your own family? If you have any additional resources you'd like to share, please leave them in the comments section!
