Christmas 2013: Jesse Tree

We started our Jesse Tree this week. It's a tradition Mr.Pate and I started several years ago, and one of my favorite things we do. This is our first year including Griffin. So we explained what the tree was and that we would be adding an ornament each night. Each ornament will help us learn about what happened in the bible leading up to Jesus being born.

We asked Griffin what Christmas was. His response was "Christmas! Ho-ho-ho! Merry Christmas!" Which was such a cute and spirited answer, but it shows you how quickly we can lose the "reason for the season". We don't even push Santa, and Griffin already associates the holiday with him. (Disclaimer: we are not an anti-Santa family. I get peoples reasons for each of the different ways to handle Santa at Christmas and they all are valid and good. But we determined we wanted to have Santa around as a fun aspect of Christmas, but we are not going to push him as a real character who our kids have to be good to get presents from.) It was very fun to teach him that Christmas is Jesus' birthday, bc Griffin loves birthdays. He walks around singing happy birthday all the time.

Anyhow, we have a devotion book that has a devo on each ornament for the tree, so we read that together. The first night's was on sin, so we got to emphasize what sin is and who saves is from that. How precious it is to hear our son answer "Jesus!" when we ask questions.


(If you're interested in doing a Jesse Tree, there are TONS of free devos and ornaments online. We bought plain ornaments and drew the pictures on them, super good drawings haha!)

- Mrs.Pate via my iPhone