O Come, O Rod of Jesse's Stem

I love the season of Advent, especially when I'm expecting... which has been the case for three out of the last five Advents! I really feel like I can share in Mary's anticipation and expectation in a concrete way. What a beautiful gift! This year is the first that Max is starting to get the idea of Advent. He knows that he is waiting for Christmas, and when all of the candles on the wreath are lit, it will be here!

Of course, at this point in his life, awaiting the coming of Jesus is about equal in importance to awaiting the coming of his Christmas presents. So to re-emphasize the real reason we're celebrating, I decided this year to do a Jesse Tree for the first time. Max is kind of hit-or-miss when it comes to projects, but something about this one really caught his fancy. Each day in December, we will read a story from the Bible and then make an ornament for our poster board tree that represents the story. Max loved the story of creation, especially the fact that "God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves..." (Gen 1:21, RSV) Sea monsters? Awesome!

I have tried to put Max in charge of as much of this project as possible, and he has taken it very seriously. So far, he has chosen the symbol to represent each story and I draw a simple ink outline for him to color in. For the creation story, he chose a sun and moon. For the story of Adam and Eve he wanted two stick figures holding hands. And for the story of the fall, he asked for a tree with a snake on it. Pretty good, I think!

This is our Jesse Tree so far, colored by Max and... uh... drawn by me. Hey, I never claimed to be an artist!

I love the fact that the Jesse Tree gives us the opportunity to learn about salvation history in the form of a fun project! If anyone wants to make their own, we used this site's recommended Bible verses. Your tree and ornaments can be as complex or simple as you want. We opted for simple this year, but I'm hoping to make this a yearly tradition that can change and grow as the kids do!