Jesse Tree!

 With one in college and the other two in public school, we're in a new phase of life. But I want to pull out the Jesse Tree again this year, especially for my youngest.  

I've misplaced my copy of Welcoming the Christ Child (although I imagine it will turn up when I pull out all the Christmas boxes!), so I'm starting with the readings compiled from the old Festal Celebrations group. We still have our old ornament sets, but we don't have the tree up yet - so I thought I'd let the girls draw the stories as we go. They seem to do well when I keep their hands busy. I made these quick templates with 40 boxes, so they can draw a tiny new story every day. Here's hoping we get through all 40!

Jesse Tree Stories and Ornaments

Nov 15 1: Creation of Universe (Sun)
Nov 16 2: Creation of Man (Two People)
Nov 17 3: The Fall (Fruit)
Nov 18 4: Noah (Rainbow)
Nov 19 5: Abraham (Constellation of Stars)
Nov 20 6: Isaac (altar)
Nov 21 7: Jacob’s Ladder (Ladder)
Nov 22 8: Israel’s 12 Sons (Coat of Many Colors)
Nov 23 9: Joseph’s Elevation (cows)
Nov 24 10: Israel’s blessing and prophecy on Judah (lion)
Nov 25 11: Moses-Infant (Basket)
Nov 26 12: Moses-Burning Bush (Burning Bush)
Nov 27 13: Plagues of Egypt (Frog)
Nov 28 14: Parting the Red Sea (Parted Sea)
Nov 29 15: Water from the Rock (Staff)
Nov 30 16: Ten Commandments (Stone Tablets
Dec 01 17: Ruth (Shock of Wheat)
Dec 02 18: Birth of Samuel, Song of Anna (Horn)
Dec 03 19: Samuel and Eli (Candle Lamp)
Dec 04 20: David Anointed King (Sheep)
Dec 05 21: David and Goliath (Slingshot)
Dec 06 22: David psalmist 109 - (Footstool
Dec 07 23: Solomon (Crown)
Dec 08 24: Elias (Burning Rock)
Dec 09 25: Jonah (Whale)
Dec 10 26: Tobias (Fish)
Dec 11 27: Isaiah, Call his name Emmanuel (Scroll with “Emmanuel”)
Dec 12 28: Great Rejoicing Foretold (Throne)
Dec 13 29: Visit of Kings Foretold (Kings with Frankincense & Myrrh)
Dec 14 30: Daniel (stone smashing statue
Dec 15 31: Three holy youths (angel in flames/or just flames)
Dec 16 32: God’s Dwelling (Ark of the Temple])
Dec 17 33: Habbakuk 3 (mountain with a large cave, i.e. the stable)
Dec 18 34: Baruch 3:35-44- Wisdom is the book of the commandments of God
Dec 19 35: Birth & Star Foretold (Star of David)
Dec 20 36: Zacharias and Elizabeth (Censer)
Dec 21 37: Annunciation (Angel)
Dec 22 38: Visitation (Mary)
Dec 23 39: Joseph the Betrothed (Joseph)
Dec 24 40: Journey to Bethlehem (Manger)

Welcoming the Christ Child: Family Readings for the Nativity Lent

The weeks leading up to Christmas, what we call the Nativity Fast, are full of some of our favorite Advent traditions, most especially our Jesse Tree. My kids and I invested a lot of time putting together our Jesse tree set - using resources from an old yahoo listserv - which means its really hard for other families to join in on this tradition.

So I am really excited to see Elissa Bjeletich's new book and ornament set. Its a beautifully bound and illustrated, ready-to-go, 40 day Jesse Tree set. Its one of those books that's just lovely to hold. Since we already have a couple sets of ornaments, I only ordered the book. But Jelena Jeftic's illustrations are absolutely gorgeous [look at that coat of many colors!]. And the ornaments are printed on durable plastic - so I hope another set is in our future.

 The lovely coat of many colors

Each story is brief and easy to read, with the scripture reference and a few questions at the end. I love that it focuses on telling the story, and then gives you the space to respond to it anew. The discussion notes show how the stories point to Christ, and succinctly draw you back to the gospel message:

Christ will deliver us from death. 

God loves everyone. 

God joins us in difficult places.

Esau's bowl of stew

Really its more flexible than just a Jesse Tree set. The 40 readings aren't numbered and there aren't any instructions, so you can use it how you see fit - one reading a day for the 40 day fast, a couple of chapters a night throughout December, or stretched into a homeschool unit over the 36 week year.

So, I'm totally thrilled with it, and I can't wait for November 15!

King David, the psalmist

Making Ready for the Nativity

Nativity table begun! 

I can't wait! I love getting out all of our little ornaments and mangers and nativity scenes and talking to the children about softening our hearts. For my non-Orthodox friends, we do Christmas a little differently - we fast 40 days before Christmas, so we try to avoid too many treats and parties and focus instead on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. But we still celebrate the fast with much joy and anticipation! And because we start early, I have to hold myself back a little, and not pull out all the things on November 15. I know some people feel like the activities and crafts are too much pressure this time of year, but for me it is a joy. And most of my work was done in years past, so I keep it pretty simple now. Here's my plan:

Celebrating the Nativity Fast, Feast and 12 days

At the start of the fast (Nov. 15): Put up a simple garland on the fireplace for our Jesse tree ornaments, and get out our empty manger to start our manger activity (we're making a soft place to welcome Christ through acts of kindness). Also, put up our Nativity Countdown Printable to keep track of the days. Make a meal plan and put that on the fridge, as well.

The girls and I will be reading through the books of Luke and Acts in the mornings during the fast. And we're looking forward to praying the Advent Paraklesis at church on Wednesdays during the fast.

On St. Nicholas Day (Dec 5/6): Put out our shoes for St. Nicholas, and find them filled with treats in the morning. Later in the day we will put up our Christmas tree!

On St. Lucia Day (Dec. 13): Put up lights in the kitchen window to remember our saint of light. We'll also make Lucia buns to take and share at church.

The Sunday of the Holy Forefathers (Dec. 13): Get out our toy nativity set to play with as we approach Christmas. Our ongoing Jesse Tree activity teaches the meaning of this Sunday, so I'll briefly talk about this to the kids on the way to Liturgy. All the stories we've been reading point to Christ, listen to the hymns and readings today to see how many of the Old Testament stories you know!

Christmas Eve (Dec. 24): This year, we'll celebrate Christmas here at our own mission church for the first time. We're very excited about celebrating in our own town with all of our people (and about not having to drive late at night). The Liturgy starts late, after 10 PM - don't forget to take a nap!

On Christmas Day (Dec. 25): Find our baby Jesus in the manger! Open presents and eat sausage balls and other goodies! I've seen an old custom to eat your Christmas Dinner with straw on the table under a linen table cloth. I've always wanted to do that (how memorable for the children!) so maybe this year will be the year!

The Twelve Days of Christmas (Dec. 25 - Jan. 5): This is the time we usually spend with family, doing the laid back celebrating. We make sure to eat lots of goodies and do lots of singing during this time. We usually end up doing all of the Jesse Tree readings for this period all at once, and usually the night before Theophany.

New Years/St. Basil's Day (Jan. 1): We are often just getting back home from our travels. We'll enjoy a lazy day unpacking, and bake a vasilopita using my favorite recipe.

Theophany (Jan. 6): I love this service at church with the Great Blessing of the Water. We'll drink whatever Holy Water we have left and take our cleaned bottles to church to fill with new water. After Theophany, we'll put away the tree and clean house to get ready for our house blessing!

How beautifully the church calendar rolls around again and again. Thank God!

40 Day Nativity Printable and getting organized

If you read my blog for very long, you'll find that there are two things that I love the most: special breads with special shapes for holidays and the Jesse Tree. I get so excited about them and love to share when they turn out lovely. But I'm really bad at, like, everything else - so don't take this organization as the standard for the rest of my life. Still I hope some of these ideas can be helpful to others.

This year, I started early to organize my ornaments and readings - not quite so handmade, but neat and tidy and that makes me happy.

1. I bought an ornament storage box from Lowes. We now have two sets of ornaments, so I wanted a way to organize the ornaments by day - and easily see if we're missing something. I made a fancy, pretty, handmade ornament holder a few years ago, which kept spilling and my husband thought it was a fire hazard - so, a pretty little fail. This year I went to Lowes. The box has 48 compartments, so I put two days in the first four compartments to make room for 52. I wrote the numbers in the compartments with a gold pen. We'll keep the box under the tree (once we have a tree!)

2. I printed my Jesse Tree readings. I'm using the Jesse Tree readings from the festal celebrations group. They also provided some additional readings for each day, which are really nice. Somewhere I downloaded a pdf with the scripture readings and additional readings combined (I can't find the source for this pdf! does anyone know where it came from? Update: here it is in the festal celebrations fb group), and I had this printed and coil bound at fed/ex kinkos. It can be pricey - but I'm always very happy with things I print there, and now we'll have a nice book for years to come.

We keep the book in a basket in the living room with our other read alouds and nativity books, and my Old Testament timeline in a plastic sleeve. We try to read at night after dinner, but don't sweat it if we get behind. I'm so grateful for all of the people who organized the Jesse Tree ornaments and readings in the first place! 

3. I made an easy 40 day Advent calendar printable. While I LOVE the Jesse Tree, it doesn't provide a visual way to see how far you've come/have left to go - and you can't find commercial calendars with 40 days. There are a lot of complicated projects you can do to make your own, but this year I made a simple printable instead. We put it on the fridge, and I thought we could draw the ornament symbol or X each day. Grab the PNG below to print. (If you haven't see it yet, I made a couple of prettier ones - here and here!)

These organizers aren't necessary, of course, but now they're done - they make my fast a bit simpler and prettier - and maybe they'll make next year easier, too. So hopefully I can continue to move through the fast a bit more quietly now.

Wishing you a good fast!

Old Testament Timeline Printable for Jesse Tree

Okay, I'll admit it: I started playing Christmas music yesterday. 

with a few sweet ornaments from our ornament exchange group

I'm getting ready for one of my favorite family traditions of the whole year. During the Nativity Fast we do a Jesse Tree, with readings and ornaments from the Old Testament that lead to the birth of Christ. I've noticed my children don't always have a good sense of how the different events relate to one another. For years, I've wanted a Bible Timeline to provide a context for the stories we tell. There are several commercial ones: most have a lot of text and dates and are more involved than I need. I really like this one with all the pictures, but its 10' long! That just won't work for our home. 

So I obsessed over it for 48 hours, and made my own. I drew a simple cartoon history of the Old Testament. It doesn't include every prophet and king and favorite story (because otherwise it would be 10' long!), but it provides a big picture, so when you're reading your favorite story you can point and say, "this happened here." I'm hoping it will help my kids develop a sense of the continuity of the story.

I drew the timeline over 5 sheets of paper, but through the magic of Adobe, I've squished it onto a single printable page. Yes, ONE page. The pictures are tiny, but they are simple and readable, so I think it works. 

And its for you, too! Wishing you a good Nativity fast! Grab the printable PDF here - it includes a black and white page, and one with a little color. 

If you don't want the teeny-tiny version, you can order it in poster form from Zazzle in various sizes and paper qualities. I haven't actually done this yet, but I might. Let me know if you do! Click the embedded poster image below to head over to zazzle.

Old Testament Bible Timeline Poster by Laura Wilson
Make custom prints online at zazzle.com

Old Testament Timeline in black and white by Mary Laura
More Bible Posters

*I've cross-posted this on wewilsons blog to share the fun.