Our Jesse Tree

This year as part of our Christmas celebration we made a Jesse tree.  We used our Christmas tree instead of having a separate one and used homemade or store bought ornaments to represent each story.

A Jesse tree (in case you haven't ever heard of it) is actually an advent celebration.  It tells the story of God's salvation plan from the beginning of the world, through the Old Testament, to the birth, death and resurrection of Christ. The idea of the Jesse Tree comes from Isaiah 11:1 " A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a branch will bear fruit."


I knew that we would not remember to do all 25 days so I only did enough for several Bible stories and started it the week before Christmas.  If I'd known how much Hudson would love it, I'd have done more.  He loved reading the stories and hanging the ornaments on the tree, and then retelling the stories to anyone who came over.  His favorite story was the "devil snake" who got kicked out of heaven and tricked Adam and Eve. 

  There are several Jesse tree devotional books that you can purchase.  I thought they were all still too advanced for Hudson.  Ann Voskamp has a great one that she put together as well, along with printables you can use instead of actual ornaments. (There are several different ways you can make your own Jesse tree - just google it for ideas.) But I still thought it was a little too much for him.  So we ended up reading the stories from one of Hudson's Bible's.  This is my favorite children's Bible that we own - The Jesus Storybook Bible.  I love the way they tell the stories and each story ends with a little hint about "someone coming to finish God's plan, etc" so it was perfect for working up to the birth of Jesus. 

I'm definitely planning on doing this again next year - plus Tate will be able to be involved as well.  So now I have all year to look for more ornaments to represent the other Bible stories.