Christian families should start a Jesse Tree tradition this Advent - they won’t regret it

Over the years having a Jesse Tree each Advent has been one of the best traditions in our family. My three boys are all older teenagers now but they still love to have a Jesse Tree as part of our season of Advent.

Advent means waiting. In many church traditions, it is about waiting for Jesus’ second coming but it makes much more sense to frame it as a season of waiting for Jesus’ first coming, the first Christmas - that’s much easier for children to grasp in terms of the timing! Just like Mary waited through her pregnancy, much like Simeon and Anna both waited in the temple for the redemption and rescue of God’s people, we wait for the good news of Jesus’ birth and the joy that comes with remembering Emmanuel, God with us.

The Jesse Tree is a way to celebrate Advent as a family in an engaing participative way. I won’t lie it take a bit of preparation, but you know how the saying goes: the more you put in, the more you get out.

The basic idea is that you find a dead tree branch that is big enough to take twenty-four hanging objects but not so big it takes over a whole room in your house! (you want to find this soon so you can allow it to dry out). You then need to think about how to support it to it stands up (a bucket with bricks in normally does the trick). You can then also make it look all nice with some material around the base.

Then (and this is where it gets a bit involved) you need to plan out 24 Bible verses that go from Isaiah 10:10 which promises that the Messiah would be a root of Jesse (meaning a descendent of Jesse, the father of King David) through to the birth of Jesus. I have to say we cheated. Our boys were young when we started our Jesse tree and we felt starting at Genesis 1 would make more sense as you cover the whole story of the lead up to Jesus (which the Messiah was needed etc. etc.).

Then you begin to plan to create of find objects to represent the readings (a ping pong ball is painted to become the world at creation, a rainbow represents Noah, a crown for King David etc. etc). We used to spend the whole of the Saturday before the first Sunday of Advent finding, making (and remaking!) these objects and they have become special items in the life of our family (you can always fast track some of them in the early years by just doing drawings but get more adventurous as the year’s go by).

Each day of advent, over a meal or just before bed, you can take out the reading and the object (OK we put chocolate in a bag as well), read the reading (or find a video of the reading if you prefer), talk about where it fits in the timeline of waiting for Jesus,  hang the object and pray a short prayer, job done. It has to be one of the best traditions we have brought into our family. We definitely have put more into this one over the years but have also definitely got more out.

Here are the readings we use in order (feel free to lengthen or shorten the readings for your own family - give the wider context if you feel it is needed):

You can find more guidance and ideas on Jesse trees here.