I tried to really concentrate on celebrating Thanksgiving before I moved on to Christmas this year. It was terrific, except now I feel a bit behind on Advent.
One of the things we do to keep Christ in the midst of our Christmas celebration is to observe Advent. Advent is fun for the children because it is the anticipation of Jesus' arrival. Isn't that the emotion most at the heart of the secular Santa fun anyway? Santa Claus visits our house (as does a pesky elf that should be arriving soon), but I would rather most of that emotion be directed towards anticipating the hero's arrival in the great story of Scripture.
Using a Jesse tree devotion each night has been a great addition to Christmas for our family. I started doing this when the children were 3. Honestly, it was probably a bit young but we managed and it started a great tradition. In past years I have used a couple of different free online resources that were a little over our heads. We have colored and cut out paper ornaments to use (also available as free templates online).
This year I was thinking of ordering something a bit more child friendly to use for the devotions, but found multiple well-rated books on amazon. I was particularly interested in this one and this one. Anybody have any feedback from personal experience? Since we were out of school again today I was hoping to have the children work on updating a few of our paper ornaments.
12 comments:
Here's a free one from one of my favorite bloggers: http://www.aholyexperience.com/2010/11/free-jesse-tree-advent-devotional-book/
I was going to link to Ann Voskamp's as well, but someone beat me to it. Just scanned over it and it looks wonderful. We have one that we've used the last few years, but might have to think about updating it this year!
I have the Smith book (the green one).
I like the devotions that are there. It includes a childrens version as well as an adult version of each devotional.
The only caution I would give is this....different books have different topics and I had to do some searching to find ornaments to go with each day last year.
Hope this helps!
Awesome! I love Ann and these ornaments look terrific!! Thanks soooo much!!
We are doing this this year too! Since before I had children I knew the Jesse Tree would be something that became a central part of our Christmas. Now that my oldest is 5 we are ready to start! In fact, it's the tree I'm putting up today! (Our 1st one... we are running a little behind this year!)
this is the one we have. http://www.amazon.com/Advent-Jesse-Tree-Devotions-Christmas/dp/1426712103/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291056264&sr=8-1
i also ordered the ornaments off of ETSY. :)
I recruited some friends to make ornaments that will hopefully last us a few years!
http://themunciefamily.blogspot.com/2010/11/crafty-devotions.html
I was going to point you to Ann Voskamp's also, but I see someone beat me to it.
I have tried the Jesse tree before also, but with 3 boys, ages 5, 3 and 1, it has always been so difficult. I am not sure if I should just do it with the 5 year old this year or maybe the older 2 and leave the baby out a few more years. I am not sure...
We're using Ann Voskamp's as well this year. Beautiful!
Guess I should have read my favorite blogs this morning before heading out to the Christian Bookstore. I picked up the green book of Jesse Tree Devotionals just today.
With three kids 6-13 years we've been doing it for a few years with free online versions and thought I'd try a new resourse.
I love Holy Experience and now I'll have to decide which I like more!!
I was also going to point you to Ann Voskamp's. I just downloaded it tonight. =)
We have the green one, too. We do the child version with my daughter. This was actually a church family project last year. 20 families signed up. A few signed up for extra ornaments. We had a few weeks to make up all the ornaments that we needed. Then, we had a dessert/ornament exchange. Pastor went over each day and a family member would distribute their family ornament to all the participants. We now have a basket full of Jesse Tree ornaments and only needed to make one. Our tree is upright and other than a little string of lights, we're ready to go.
What a wonderful way to end our day! We love to do our reading before bed.
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