The Jesse Tree

"Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a branch from his roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD." - Isaiah 11:1-2 NASB

Advent  has begun and around our house we are counting down the days until we celebrate the birth of our Savior. Last year we picked up a resource from aholyexperience.com to use during Advent.

If you subscribe to her blog, you will get a link to the Jesus Advent devotional (redistribution any other way is expressly forbidden or I would just post ours here). It has paper ornaments for your Jesse Tree (you have to make your own tree) and a family devotional for each day leading up to and including Christmas.

Our Jesse Tree with all the ornaments

I freehanded a tree on some MDF and cut it out with a jigsaw. I wanted to paint the top of the stump a lighter shade of brown, but ran out of time. Maybe I'll add that this year.

If you make a Jesse Tree, I will warn you to take into consideration how many ornaments it needs to hold. I made ours without much planning and they barely fit.

Each day, we read the devotional as a family and pick one of the kids to hang the corresponding ornament. We really enjoy it and I hope you do as well.

May your family have a wonderful Christmas season!