Jesse Tree-ish

Update: This is the original post and inspiration for the Advent ebook, Truth in the Tinsel: An Advent Experience for Little Hands . See how it all came about!

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I think I told you how I really wanted to do a Jesse Tree with Lydia this year. Well, it just didn’t work for me. I thought it was a little too detailed for a 2 year old. So, instead I went through the whole Christmas story and came up with 23 objects we could make an ornament out of. (We had already done 2 days of the Jesse Tree.)

We’re on Day 8 and here’s our tree…

Are you impressed? Yeah, I know, it’s not very Christmas-y. But it’s still pretty cute. Here’s a quick rundown of all the ornaments:

1. Jesus’ Family Tree. This was part of the Jesse Tree devos I found online. Basically, an intro to the Jesse Tree. The idea is that Jesus had a human family tree—showing his humanity which is equal to his divinity. We just cut out a funfoam tree and painted some fingerprint leaves on it.

2. Fruit from the Garden of Eden. Still part of the Jesse Tree devotions. It’s the story of Adam and Eve disobeying God and eating the fruit in the garden. Their disobeience is what starts the events that “make” God promise Jesus, the Savior. We basically made a piece of fruit the same way you’d make those cute marble bubble magnets. We just cut out cute patterns from a magazine and glued the clear marbles on top!

3. Crown. This is when I started my own “devotions”. We read Isaiah 9:6-7 which talks about Jesus being born and sitting on David’s throne. So, we cut out a cardboard crown, glued some yarn on it in pretty patterns, then covered it in tinfoil and traced the yarn with markers. Not the cutest thing I ever saw…

4. Mary, Jesus’ mother. We read Luke 1 and basically just made a “paper doll” out of fun foam, yarn and leftover fabric.

5. Gabriel, the angel. We read Luke 1 again. Then we made this masculine looking angel out of a clothespin and two coffee filters. Plus a little glitter and some gold twine. Oh yeah, and blue yarn for hair.

6. Music Shaker. This was a fun one. We read Luke 1 where Mary sings a song thanking God for Jesus. So, we made a musical instrument to make up our own song with. It’s just an old film canister, that we wrapped with gift wrap. I stuck some curling ribbon through a hole in the top and attached it to a bead on the inside, to hold it on. We added more ribbon for fun, filled it up with rice. Lydia shakes it almost every day and makes up all kinds of great songs with it!

7. Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father. We read Matthew 1. Then made another “paper doll” from funfoam, felt and pipe cleaners. Yes, I know he looks like a ninja.

8. Jesus name plate. This one was great. I was feeding Asa while Lydia found J-E-S-U-S in our big box of funfoam letters. It took a looooong time and she loved it! We read Matthew 1 and talked about the meaning of Jesus’ name (also Immanuel).

I’m really enjoying this Advent-calendar-jesse-tree-ornament-a-day thingie. Lydia LOVES it. It’s great because we’re taking the story one step at a time. We’ve read the same portions over and over again so she’s really getting the details of the story in her mind!