The Advent Jesse Tree Exchange

If you've never heard of The Advent Jesse Tree, then we had something in common about a month ago.  That's when I received a group email from a good girlfriend, Kim, asking if I was interested in an ornament swap based on the Jesse Tree devotional.

Here's a little background information:
"The Jesse Tree is a Christmas tradition that helps tell the story of the Bible from creation to the Christmas Story.  The tradition began in medieval times, when the Jesse Tree story was made into large tapestries, carvings or stained glass windows to help tell the Christmas story to people who couldn't read.  Today, many families celebrate Advent using smaller trees or branches decorated with symbols."

The reason it has the name "Jesse Tree" is because of Isaiah's reference to a shoot coming up from the stump of Jesse and his roots bearing a branch with fruit.  Jesse was the father of King David, Israel's great king.  Jesus is a descendant of King David, and we believe that Jesus is the "shoot" referred to in the passage from Isaiah.

Naturally, I want my children to fully understand the meaning of Christmas and I want them to know much more than "we celebrate Christmas because Jesus was born".  So, I volunteered to be a part of this exchange.  Each person that volunteered was tasked with taking on 1-2 days (each day has a symbol that ties into the devotional) and thus creating 14 ornaments total per day so all 14 ladies would end up with a total set.  We all showed up at Katherine's lovely house (thanks again for hosting!) for the exchange.  The final result was AMAZING!  The creativity, uniqueness, and time spent on these ornaments was just impressive.  We each explained the process of making our particular ornament and then everyone was able to take one ornament per Advent day (hence the swap) so now we have all the parts for creating the Jesse Tree this December.  Check out these pictures!!

Group Pic minus a few lovely ladies that left early or couldn't be there

The ornaments were put out on platters

Kim typed up a lovely guide for us to use

If you are interested, here's the devotional book!

A whole table of ornaments

Here's a breakdown of each ornament in order (with the exception of a few)

So, each day you have your child put up a new ornament on the tree and read a devotional together.  You can use any type of tree; Katherine's was just here for display (and super cute!).  I will forever cherish these precious ornaments and cannot wait to put them on our miniature tree together this Advent season.  

Thank you Kim for this wonderful idea!  Thank you Katherine for hosting!  Thank you ladies for all the time you spent in creating these ornaments!