Jesse Tree

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;

 from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. 

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him -

the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,

the Spirit of counsel and of might,

the Spirit of the knowledge

 and fear of the Lord.  Isaiah 11: 1-2

I first heard of a Jesse Tree last Christmas.  We are trying to make Christmas more about Jesus and less about secular traditions.  I knew this would be a great new Christ-centered tradition for our family.   

We decided to use Ann Voskamp's Jesse Tree Advent Family Devotional.  It's absolutely free and absolutely wonderful.  Darren and I have enjoyed it as much or more than Nate.  It's a 25 day devotional covering significant events in scripture that point to the coming of Christ.

                          

The ornament templates are free with the devotional.  Nate's had a great time making them. 

I must confess that making these is Nate's first time to use scissors at home, even though he got them in his Easter basket last spring. 

He has to hold his tongue just right to cut correctly...

and glue correctly. :)

The finished product, with a little help from mom.

I will be honest and say that moving away from secular traditions is hard since our culture, even our Christian culture, is saturated in them.  I will also be honest and say that doing a daily family devotional was hard this time of year.  We started out great and did our devotional every night after dinner.  Then, all of the Christmas programs, parties, etc. started and we missed some days.  Playing catch-up was also hard, so our Jesse tree is missing a few ornaments. 

God is changing our hearts in so many ways and we are making small steps to honor Him in everything we do - during the Christmas season and every day.  We obviously don't do this perfectly, just like our imperfect Jesse tree with its missing ornaments.  We are praying that God will continue to change our hearts and teach us how to love Him with all of or heart, soul and mind.  We are praying that God will give us wisdom to know how to honor Him in our Christmas traditions.