Advent 2012

Friday, December 7, 2012

It is the season of Advent and I am so excited to be starting some family traditions and Advent practices with you and Daddy.  We have 25 little drawstring bags with numbers on them hung on our fireplace mantel.  Inside each one is an ornament and an activity for the day.  The ornaments go with an Advent scripture and "lesson" for the days leading us to the coming promise of Christ our savior.  Of course you are too young for the readings but it is a good practice for Daddy and me to do as well.  But each day I talk with you about the ornament picture and you get to hang it on the Jesse Tree.

What is a Jesse Tree?

"A tree with roots deep into the past, that finger right out through the stories of the Old Testament, back to the very beginning, and with branches that stretch so high and wide you can see the whole grand panorama of God's story from the very first blink of the first star over Eden to the blinding light over Bethlehem.

Now this Jesse Tree that our hearts climb high in this season of waiting, it's named after the Jesse who was the father of David, the first royal branch in the tree of the Messiah to come, David to whom God promised that his line and his sons and his family would be King forever.  And when his sons and grandsons and great grandsons turned from God and loved sin more than their Father and their kingdoms fell, and it seemed as though the whole royal family tree of Jesse had been chopped right off at the roots, our covenant, promise-keeping God, He vowed, 'Out of the stump of David's family will grow a shoot- yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root. . . In the day the heir to David's throne will be a banner of salvation to all the world.  The nations will rally to him, and the land where he lives will be a glorious place.' (Isa11:1,10)

So, we'll wait for the Christ like Zaccheus on the top limb, and we'll read the stories of the Old Testament, the whole pageantry of mankind, from Adam to the Messiah, each story pointing to the coming promise, the incredibly impossible gift, the Glorious Christ."

quoted from: http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/11/free-christmas-family-devotional-jesse-tree-ornaments/

We are on day 7 and so far it is going well!  Some of the activities we've done are getting a Christmas tree, going to Union Station and Crown Center to do Cmas activities, buying and talking about and playing with a nativity scene, reading Cmas books from the library, going to the zoo to take the Zebras Christmas lights (a giving ornament we pulled from the zoo tree), and listening and singing Cmas carols.

Our Jesse Tree and Advent candles

 Advent Calendar

 

I got you a wool nativity set from World Market and you loved it.  You quickly learned to say "baby Jesus".  When we were reading your bible (which you get really excited about and say "bi-ble, bi-ble") and we got to the part about baby Jesus you would point up to the shelf where the nativity was and say "Je-sus!".  You also learned a song at church called "Baby Jesus, Baby Jesus" that you love to sing and do the actions for.  It's very sweet.  But your favorite thing to do is to take the wool camel and the wool sheep and make them kiss and say "mmmwa!"