growing up
our family never celebrated Advent
i 'spose
that's because
it tends to be a more
liturgical practice
and liturgical
our family was not
however
in the past few years
i've read lots of posts
about 'doing' Advent with kids
and decided that
this year
our family would practice Advent
after looking for ways
to make it meaningful
i came across the Jesse Tree idea
a Jesse Tree Advent
is simply spending some time each day
between December 1 and Christmas
doing a short devotional time
tracing the line of Jesus
through the Old Testament
and each day you do a story
you open and hang
a corresponding ornament on a special tree
after researching for ideas
i came across this site
which has tons of helpful information
along with daily December devotionals
and corresponding ornaments to make
fiona and i got right to work
first
we went outside
and cut a section of branch
using florist foam
we secured the branch
into a vase
then added some decorative rocks
to fill in the space
i found a largish bulletin board
covered it with white wrapping paper
and strung some simple twine across
using the aforementioned guide
fiona and i made our ornaments
using 3x5 index cards
folded and glued
markers
fabric scraps
bits and pieces
and a little creativity
(if i do say so myself)
after the kids went to bed
i pulled out brown lunch bags
and wrote numbers 1 through 25 on them
after putting an ornament
and a few small sweet treats in each bag
i used clothespins
to attach the bags to the bulletin board
and on December 1
the unwrapping of the story of Jesus
will begin
here are a few more resources
for learning about the Jesse Tree
The Jesse Tree
does your family practice?
{alison}