This morning I had a question from a young friend on Facebook regarding our family's Advent traditions and I thought I would also share with you. For many years we have celebrated Advent--the season immediately after Thanksgiving that precedes Christmas. Advent is a looking ahead to the coming of Christ. We study many of the prophecies from the Old Testament that tell of the coming Christ. This is a precious time of study with our children that keeps our hearts in tune with the true meaning of Christmas with much less focus on the busyness that commercialism has added to the season. It's a time where we stop each evening, sitting around our table with the Advent wreath and candles in the center of us, sing hymns, read Scripture and listen to Daddy read the devotional. The younger ones eagerly look forward to adding the Jesse Tree ornament to the small table top tree that sits lit-up nearby. It is a very precious time for us and one that I hope my children will take with them into their own homes when they leave here.
The following is the resource our family has used for several years. I actually found it in our library's used bookstore at a time when we were studying Christmas traditions in our homeschool. I thought we would use it that one year, but we have used it for at least ten years now. It is still available at Amazon and appears to have gone through several printings as I see it in at least two different colors. I printed off Jesse Tree ornaments from another site (I have no idea where) and they work with this book pretty well.
http://www.amazon.com/Advent-Jesse-Tree-Devotions-Christmas/dp/0687009081
Ann Voskamp is a new Christian author and a homeschooling blogging mom and has a Jesse Tree Advent Devotional Book with printouts for ornaments available at the link below. You can look at each of these links to read pages of the actual books to find what would suit your family best.
http://www.aholyexperience.com/2010/11/free-jesse-tree-advent-devotional-book/
