My favorite time of the year

For our family, the Jesse Tree has been a fun way to focus on God's foresight, love, and grace in the matters of men as we remember the world's first "advent" of waiting for Christ from creation until His Birth.

Ignoring the official church calendar for Advent, we usually begin our Jesse Tree tradition Dec. 1st by finding a large branch that each of the ornaments will rest upon in the coming days and weeks.   We will start out with, "In the beginning" and have a globe ornament as representation. typically we eat dinner and then sit in the living room by the Advent wreath where we will light the 1st candle. We then talk about ornaments we have already talked about. Mostly it is Preston telling us in his words what each one means. We then in story form explain the new ornament and let him hang it on the tree. Afterward we sing a song and we each pick someone or something we can pray for other than ourselves a neighbor, family member, someone in need etc. We end the evening by letting Preston blow out the candle. Since Preston is just shy of turning 4 we try to keep the whole thing to about 30  min.  

I have come to LOVE the season of ADVENT! It is a meaningful time for our family. My favorite thing about this is watching Preston light up with excitement while telling us what each ornament means. 

May the peace of God be evident in your house during this powerful season. For unto us a child is born.  


Later I will share some new traditions that we have begun this year and are excited to carry out in the years to follow. What are some of your favorite traditions that are meaningful for your children?

Christmas in Sept.

Last year we started a new tradition in our Advent observations. I made a 'Jesse' tree that had about 20 ornaments that represented creation until the birth of Christ. Since it was more of a last minute idea I worked on the fly last year and this year wanted to improve the ornaments. I have been working diligently on this project while in Chiang Mai waiting on baby Isabella's arrival. Below are a few that I have improved on. 

  Noah's ark

Wall of Jericho

Tree of knowledge of good and evil (sin entering the world)

10 commandments

The above were made from a simple salt dough recipe, but I soon learned that in SE Asia it is too humid and they don't fully dry. So I have since bought air dry clay and am in the process of redoing them and seeing if the clay will dry better. I am almost finished with all the ornaments. I have a few other things we will be doing as a family this year, but I will save that for the actual season of Advent. I know it is Sept, but I also know that with Isabella coming in 5 weeks I wont have time to do these crafty things before Advent as I will be all caught up in staring at our miracle baby. 

Our New Advent Tradition

Advent is a special season of the year and we are enjoying each day of expectation and waiting for Christmas. Right now this is one of Preston's highlights of the day: After we finish cleaning up from dinner we head up to our living room and together light the advent candles. In the corner of the room opposite our Christmas tree we have our advent branch. Every day we tell a different story from the Bible as we move chronologically from the creation of the world to the birth of Christ. Jamie has creatively made a series of ornaments that symbolize each of these stories. We review the previous stories with Preston and listen to him retell as much as he can from the earlier stories, then add a new story and place its ornament on the branch. Besides being great fun for all three of us, it is a good way to practice our storytelling and we are seeing some of the principles we have learned about oral communicators lived out in Preston. He learns so much through repetition and other memory devices, and the symbols on the ornaments take him right into each of the stories.