Our Jesse Tree

John and I have always disagreed on how to celebrate Christmas.  Jokingly I call him a Scrooge but he truly just wants to celebrate Christmas in a way that honors Christ.  If that means zero presents given and received from/to us... then thats what he would be prefer.

Me... well my love language is giving/receiving gifts so Christmas has always been a time to love and be loved by friends and family.  However, I do agree with John that the focus often shifts to gifts/materialism and away from Christ.  Coming up on 4 years of marriage in January, we have wrestled with each other over how to keep the focus on Jesus.

Now that we have Aden, we are trying to put our plans into action as we start our own traditions.  We want him to be able to see the difference in the way we celebrate Christmas as Christians as opposed to how the rest of America celebrates it. 

We decided to make a Jesse Tree in place of a traditional Christmas tree.  If you don't know what a Jesse Tree is, it is based off the verse Isaiah 11:1:

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

Basically you can dress up a regular tree with ornaments that represent each day of Advent where you read from the word all of the genealogy of Jesus as well as other important events of the bible.  It goes from Creation to Abraham to Moses to Daniel to Mary and everything in between. Since there are no Blue Spruces or firs or pine trees here, our Jesse tree is made out of paper that I colored and cut out. 

Each day has a corresponding verse to read.  I can't wait to do this with my children when they are older and can participate.  Instead John and I have been doing it together, although we haven't been perfect about reading it each day (I know I know... I'm slapping my own wrist!)

And like all Advents it ends on the day of Jesus' birth!

What do you guys think of the Jesse tree? Do you do one or would you ever? I am hoping that if we ever move back to the states that this would replace our 'Christmas tree' and that we would just have ornaments that represent the days of Advent with maybe a string of lights.