So, Thanksgiving is officially over. After years spent cramming 3 Thanksgiving meals into 2 days, our various families decided to draw it out this year, so we have been celebrating for an entire week! Needless to say, we are stuffed and happy.
Tomorrow is December 1st, and we are beginning our Advent activities. As Baptists, we don’t celebrate advent the way some denominations do, but I like to use Advent calendars at home throughout the month of December to teach the kids about Jesus and the events leading up to his birth. It’s fun and easy and helps to keep us focused on the point of the season: our Savior’s birth.
Last year, I put together an an advent calendar using a cardboard drawer set, and the kids loved it. We read verses every day and they got a piece of candy or an ornament for their tree, or something like that. They have been asking to start doing it already this year, but I haven’t bought anything to put in the drawers yet:(). Oops!
We are really excited because this year we are doing something a little different called a Jesse Advent Tree. A couple of weeks ago we were part of an ornament exchange for this, so we have all of our ornaments ready to go. Today we walked through the woods and cut some branches that we used to make our tree.
I put the branches, along with some Christmas Tree decorations, in a vase and put our ornaments in a cake stand next to it.
Every day we will do a devotion from The Advent Jesse Tree and add one of the ornaments to the tree.
It’s a beautiful decoration on our kitchen table.
We’re really looking forward to starting this tomorrow.
If you want to make a last minute Jesse Tree, there are plenty of online resources that let you print the ornaments for free. They also give you corresponding Bible verses to read each day. Here is a good one I found.
I wish I had grown up as one of your kids. What a different person I would have been. I think of all the years
when I was a child and knew nothing about God and my Savior Jesus Christ.
Mary Vett, I am so glad that you know about Him now!!!