Favorite Thing #21 — Jesse Tree

This is one of our absolute favorite Christmas time traditions. Starting on the first Sunday of advent, which this year is November 28th (or December 1st if we forgot), we spend time each night talking through a shortened version of God’s story. Each night we read a passage from scripture, discuss the story, and hang the corresponding ornament on the tree. This whole process starts with God’s creation of the world and ends with Jesus born in Bethlehem. It is a beautiful way to point our Christmas season back to Christ and to God’s story. When we start to get wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of all the Christmas fun, we are brought back to where our true joy comes from each night. Our kids love this tradition. They delight in telling us the stories as we review each evening the ornaments we’ve put on the tree so far. They love to see how God’s story is woven through scripture and how Jesus is the awaited one. And they also love to argue over who gets to the hang the ornament each night!

You can hang your ornaments however you choose. I know some families have a small wooden tree or just hang them on their regular Christmas tree. We use this wooden star that Austin’s uncle made out of tobacco sticks from their farm. It has a certain sentimental value and the star continually points us toward the Star of Bethlehem.

There are many versions of this tradition. Ours has roots from another family of believers who shared with us their tradition many years ago. Most of our ornaments took shape from their outline of the Jesse Tree. From that outline I made these ornaments for our family with felt. You can certainly take this route of crafting it yourself and hand making the ornaments. Warning should you choose this route– there may be a few more stressful evenings the first year as you are completing the ornament while your husband is reading the verses.

Or . . . you can hop on over to my friend Katie’s shop and buy yourself a copy of her book and her wooden ornaments and you’ll have everything you need to get started! You’ll just need a place to hang your ornaments– a ribbon with clothes pins works great. Check out all of her great resources here https://www.katiepawlak.com/store. She was even gracious enough to give us our own 10% off code. So be sure to enter MYHAMPER10 at checkout. And if you want to pickup locally, you can enter LOCALPICKUP to skip the shipping charge.

If you’re looking for a way this Christmas season to reflect more on God’s story, on the awaited one, then look no further– try doing a Jesse Tree this advent season. It is certainly one of our Favorite Things.