Christmas Traditions: keeping Jesus at the center of it all– we all have the best of intentions to make the holiday season more meaningful, but it is amazing how quickly those days fly by, isn’t it? This has become one of my favorite family traditions every December to help us be more mindful of Jesus throughout Christmas. This will be our third year hanging ornaments on our Jesse Tree and reading from Ann Voscamp’s book: “Unwrapping the Greatest Gift: A Family Celebration of Christmas”.
Ann does a wonderful job at taking us through the ‘unwrapping’ of the greatest gift of Christmas- the coming of Jesus. The artwork is beautiful and holds the attention of even our littlest children. Because there is a reading every day in December, all the way up to Christmas Day, our family keeps focused on what really matters- God sent His Son to the World for our salvation. Immanuel, God with us!
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How We Do It..
The way we incorporate the book and Jesse tree tradition is by reading our selection each evening before bed. The kids LOVE this. They love reminding us every night that it was time for the ‘story’ and ornaments. After the reading and discussion, then a child in our family gets to hang the ornament for the night on the tree. I also love that we are ending our days with scripture. I found a miniature tree at Walmart a few years ago on clearance and we use that as our Jesse tree. It is placed on our mantle in our living room.
You can purchase Jesse Tree ornaments (affiliate links to book and ornaments below) or you can download the artwork from Ann’s website and make your own. We chose the latter and I laminated them. I like how simple, but beautiful, they are. We’ve been so blessed by this annual tradition and I hope to continue it for many years to come!
What traditions do you have at Christmas time?
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