Jesse Tree

As we gear up for Christmas, my goal is to keep Christ at the center for the reason we are celebrating.  I searched a long time looking for an advent calendar that would help us do this.  This year, we are going to do a Jesse Tree .  For the 25 days of December leading up to Christmas, we will read a passage from the Old or New Testament that points towards Jesus coming, and hang an ornament with that symbol on our Jesse tree.  The last few days worth of ornaments include passages about the Christmas story.  I found these free printables/directions/passages here and over the past few weeks the kids colored the various ornaments and I laminated and put ribbon on them so we are ready to go on Tuesday.  I am really excited about it!

I printed two copies of each ornament, so each kid could each color one of each ornament.  Then we cut them out and taped the matching ornaments back to back so they would be two sided as they hung from the tree.

I gathered a bunch of branches from our yard and put them in a candle holder/vase.

These are the scriptures that go with each ornament.  We plan to read these at dinner each night and then hang up the corresponding ornament.

I bought a roll of contact paper and laminated the ornaments.  Front side...

Back side of the ornaments

I then punched holes in each ornament and strung ribbon through.

I tested them out to see how they look on the tree and they all fit great :)  We start on Tuesday!

P.S. Don't worry, I didn't for get to post about Thanksgiving!  We did quite a bit of traveling, and I am waiting for a few more pictures from family members and then I will post :).